i w iww i i m ii » i » ii itw w i >wiwiiw i i i i i w w ii> wwn >i> i ii iw wi wiii<iiiwitnwti i »iiiiiiitwni i w i 'itiM ii wwwnfi i iii iM«Httii-i 



Trilb 




mmimmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmimmimmmmimmmimmmmmmimmmmmmmmmm 




George Ju Manner 




GEORGE DU MAUKIEK 



TRILBY 



By George du Maurier 



ILLUSTRATED 




NEW YORK AND LONDON 

HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 

1901 



Copyright, 1894, by Harpsr & Brothers. 

AH rights reaervrd. 



^^H'das! Je sais un chant d'' amours 
Triste et gai^ tour d tourP^ 



ILLUSTKATIONS 



PAQK 

GEORGE DU MAURIER Frontispiece 

TAFFY, ALIAS TALBOT WYNNE 4 

"the laird op COCKPEN" 5 

" the third he was ' little billek ' " 1 

" it did one good to look at him " 9 

among the old masters 13 

"wistful and sweet" 17 

the " rosemonde " of schubert 21 

trilby's left FOOT 27 

THE FLEXIBLE FLAGEOLET 31 

THE BRIDGE OP ARTS 34 

"THREE MUSKETEERS OF THE BRUSH" 39 

TAFFY MAKES THE SALAD 43 

" THE GLORY THAT WAS GREECE " 47 

trilby's FOREBEARS 52 

TAIL-PIECE 56 

"as bad as THEY MAKE 'EM " 59 

"a voice HE didn't UNDERSTAND" 63 

" AND SO, NO MORE " 67 

" ' TWO ENGLANDERS IN ONE DAY ' " 70 

"'HIMMEL! the ROOF OF YOUR MOUTH '," 73 

" ' gA FERA UNE FAMEUSE CRAPULE DE MOINS !' " 77 

"'at you SEEN MY FAHZER'S OLE SHOES?'" 81 

TAFFY A l'eCHELLE! 85 

"the FOX AND THE CROW " 89 

THE LATIN QUARTER 92 

CUISINE BOURGEOISE EN BOHEME 95 

"the SOFT eyes" 98 

ILYSSUS 101 



VI 

PAOE 

" ' voiLA l'espayce de hom ker jkr swee !'" 105 

TIT FOR TAT Ill 

THE HAPPY LIFE 116 

"*LET MK GO, TAFFY . . ,' " . 119 

" ' qu'est ce qu'il a DONC, CE LITREBILI?'" 121 

REPENTANCE 125 

CONFESSION 129 

"all as IT USED TO be" 1,33 

''TWIN GRAY stars" 135 

"an incubus" 137 

the capitalist and the swell 141 

" ' 1 will not ! i will not !' " 151 

DODOR IN HIS GLOKY 153 

hQtEL de LA ROCHEMARTEL 155 

christmas eve 161 

"'allons glycere! rougis mon terre. . . .'" 163 

souvenir 168 

"my SISTER dear" 173 

a DUCAL FRENCH FIGHTING-COCK 175 

"'answer me, trilby!'" 179 

A CARYfl:.4riDE 180 

"'les glougloux du tin a quat' sous. . . .'" 183 

"'is she a £^i)r, MR. WYNNE?'" 187 

"^FOND OF HIM? AREN't YOUP" 191 

"so LIKE little billee " 195 

'"l must take the bull by THE HORNS ' " 199 

" ' TRILBY ! WHERE IS SHE ?" 203 

LA SffiUR DE LITREBILI 205 

"he fell a-weeping, quite desperately" 207 

"the sweet MELODIC PHRASE " 211 

"sorrowfully, arm in arm" 215 

demoralization 225 

fred walker 227 

platonic love 230 

" darlings, old or young " 235 

"the MOON-DIAL " 237 

the chairman 239 

a happy dinner 245 

"a-smokiin' their poipes and cigyars" 247 



TU 

^~'~~ FAOB 

" BONJODR, SUZON !" . . 253 

A HUMAN NIGHTINGALE 257 

CUP-AND-BALL 263 

SWEET ALICE 267 

" MAY HEAVEN GO WITH HER !" 272 

" ' SO MUCH FOR ALICE, TRAY ' " 277 

" ' you're a thief, SIR !' " 287 

" AN ATMOSPHERE OF BANK-NOTES AND GOLD " 293 

"a little picture OF THE THAMES" 296 

" ' AH ! THE BEAUTIFUL INTERMENT, MESSIEURS !' " 301 

"PAUVRE trilby" 303 

" ' JE PRONG !' " 807 

"'OON PAIR DE GONG BLONG'" oil 

GECKO 315 

"aU CLAIR DE LA LUNE " 319 

" OUVRE-MOI TA PORTE POUR L' AMOUR DE DIEU !" 322 

" MALBROUCK S'EN VA-T'EN GUERRE " 325 

" AUX NOUTELLES QUE j'aPPORTE, VOS BEAUX TEUZ VOXT PLEURER !" . 329 

un impromptu de chopin 331 

" and the remembrance of them hand in hand " 338 

" ' i believe you, my boy !' " 341 

"maman duchesse" 351 

the cut direct 354 

"petit enfant, j'aimais d'un amour tendre . . . ." 358 

" ' vite ! vite ! un commissaire de police !' " 363 

"l suppose you do all this kind of thing for mere amusement, 

MR. WYNNE?" 367 

THE FIRST VIOLIN LOSES HIS TEMPER 373 

"hast THOU FOUND ME, MINE ENEMY?" 375 

"' OH, don't YOU REMEMBER SWEET ALICE, BEN BOLT?'" 377 

"the LAST THEY SAW OF SVENGALl " 383 

" ' THREE NICE CLEAN ENGLISHMEN ' " 386 

" P(ENA PEDE CLAUDO " 389 

" THE OLD STUDIO " o 391 

" ' £T MAINTENANT DORS, MA MIGNONNE !' " 395 

"taffy WAS ALLOWED TO SEE GECKO " 400 

A FAIR BLANCHISSEUSE DE FIN 403 

A THRONE IN BOHEMIA 407 

"'OH, MY POOR girl! MY POOR GIRL !' " 410 



VUl 

PAG 

*" AH, POOR MAMMA ! SHE WAS EVKR SO MUCH PRETTIER THAN THAT !' " 41( 

'"to sing like that is to prayP" 421 

" ' THE REMEMBRANCE OF THAT PALM SUNDAY !' " 421 

FOR GECKO 43: 

"OUT OF THE MYSTERIOUS EAST" 43! 

" ' SVENGALI ! . . . SVENGALI ! . . . SVENGALI ! . . . '" 43' 

" TOUT VIENT A POINT, POUR QUI SAIT ATTENDRE !" 43! 

"l, PETE COELESTES. ..." 44] 

"PETITS BONHEURS DE CONTREBANDE " 44' 

ENTER GECKO 45] 

'"we TOOK HER VOICE NOTE BY NOTE'" 45f 

THE nightingale's FIRST SONG 45J 

"'ICH HABE OELIEBT UND GBLEBET P " 46] 

TAIL-PIECS 46^ 



TRILBY 



ffiiart jftrst 

"Mimi Pinson est une blonde, 
Uue blonde que ron counait ; 
Elle n'a qu'iiue robe an monde, 
Landerirette ! et qu'uu bonnet I" 

It was a fine, sunny, showery day in April. 

The big studio window was open at the top, and 
let in a pleasant breeze from the northwest. Things 
were beginning to look shipshape at last. The big 
piano, a semi-grand by Broad wood, had arrived from 
England by "the Little Quickness" {la Petite Vitesse, 
as the goods trains are called in France), and lay, fresh- 
ly tuned, alongside the eastern wall ; on the wall op- 
posite was a panoply of foils, masks, and boxing- 
gloves. 

A trapeze, a knotted rope, and two parallel cords, 
supporting each a ring, depended from a huge beam in 
the ceiling. Tlie walls were of the usual dull red, re- 
lieved by plaster casts of arms and legs and hands and 
feet; and Dante's mask, and Michael Aiigelo's alto- 
rilievo of Leda and the swan, and a centaur and La- 
pith from the Elgin marbles — on none of these had 
the dust as yet had time to settle. 
1 



There were also studies in oil from the nude ; copies 
of Titian, Rembrandt, Yelasquez, Rubens, Tintoret, 
Leonardo da Vinci — none of the school of Botticelli, 
Mantegna, and Co. — a firm whose merits had not as 
yet been revealed to the many. 

Along the walls, at a great height, ran a broad 
shelf, on which were other casts in plaster, terracotta, 
imitation bronze ; a little Theseus, a little Venus of 
Milo, a little discobolus ; a little flayed man threaten- 
ing high heaven (an act that seemed almost pardon- 
able under the circumstances !) ; a lion and a boar by 
Barye ; an anatomical figure of a horse with only one 
leg left and no ears; a horse's head from the pedi- 
ment of the Parthenon, earless also ; and the bust of 
Clytie, with her beautiful low brow, her sweet Avan 
gaze, and the ineffable forward shrug of her dear 
shoulders that makes her bosom a nest, a rest, a pillow, 
a refuge — to be loved and desired forever by genera- 
tion after generation of the sons of men. 

Near the stove hung a gridiron, a frying-pan, a 
toasting-fork, and a pair of bellows. In an adjoining 
glazed corner cupboard were plates and glasses, black- 
handled knives, pewter spoons, and three-pronged steel 
forks; a salad-bowl, vinegar cruets, an oil-flask, two 
mustard-pots (English and French), and such like 
things^all scrupulously clean. On the floor, which had 
been stained and waxed at considerable cost, lay two 
chetah-skins and a large Persian praying-rug. One- 
half of it, however (under the trapeze and at the 
farthest end from the window, beyond the model 
throne), was covered with coarse matting, that one 
might fence or box without slipping down and split- 



ting one's self in. two, or fall without breaking any 
bones. 

Two other windows of the usual French size and 
pattern, with shutters to them and heavy curtains 
of baize, opened east and west, to let in dawn or 
sunset, as the case might be, or haply keep them 
out. And there were alcoves, recesses, irregularities, 
odd little nooks and corners, to be tilled up as time 
wore on with endless personal knick-knacks, bibelots, 
private properties and acquisitions — things that make 
a place genial, homelike, and good to remember, 
and sweet to muse upon (with fond regret) in after- 
years. 

And an immense divan spread itself in width and 
length and delightful thickness just beneath the big 
north window, the business window — a divan so im- 
mense that three well-fed, well-contented Englishmen 
could all lie lazily smoking their pipes on it at once 
without being in each other's way, and very often 
did! 

At present one of these Englishmen — a Yorkshire- 
man, by-the-way, called Taffy (and also the Man of 
Blood, because he was supposed to be distantly re- 
lated to a baronet) — was more energetically engaged. 
Bare - armed, and in his shirt and trousers, he was 
twirling a pair of Indian clubs round his head. His 
face was flushed, and he was perspiring freely and 
looked fierce. He was a very big young man, fair, 
with kind but choleric blue eyes, and the muscles of 
his brawny arm were strong as iron bands. 

For three years he had borne her Majesty's com- 
mission, and had been through the Crimean campaign 



without a scratch. He would have been one of the 
famous six hundred in the famous charge at Bala- 
klava but for a sprained ankle (caught pla^nng leap- 
frog in the trenches), which kept him in hospital on 
that momentous day. So that he lost his chance of 
glory or the grave, and this humiliating misadventure 
had sickened him of soldiering for life, and he never 
quite got over it. Then, feeling within himself an ir- 
resistible vocation for art, he had sold out ; and here 
he was in Paris, hard at work, as we see. 

He was good - looking, 
with straight features ; but 
I regret to say that, besides 
his heavy plunger's mus- 
tache, he wore an immense 
pair of drooping auburn 
whiskers, of the kind that 
used to be called Piccadilly 
weepers, and were after- 
wards affected by Mr. Soth- 
ern in Lord Dundreary. It 
was a fashion to do so then 
for such of our gilded youth 
as could afford the time 
(and the hair) ; the bigger 
and fairer the whiskers, the more beautiful was 
thought the youth ! It seems incredible in these days, 
when even her Majesty's household brigade go about 
with smooth cheeks and lips, like priests or play-actors. 




TAFFY, ALIAS TALBOT WYNNE 



"What's become of all the gold 
Used to hang and brush their bosoms . . . ?' 



Another inmate of this blissful abode — Sandy, the 
Laird of Cockpen, as he was called — sat in similarly 
simple attire at his easel, painting at a lifelike little 
picture of a Spanish tor- 
eador serenading a lady 
of high degree (in broad 
daylight). He had never 
been to Spain, but he had 
a complete toreador's kit 
— a bargain which he 
had picked up for a mere 
song in the Boulevard 
du Temple— and he had 
hired the guitar. His 
pipe was in his mouth 
— reversed ; for it had 
gone out, and the ashes 
were spilled all over his 
trousers, where holes were often burned in this way. 

Quite gratuitously, and with a pleasing Scotch ac- 
cent, he began to declaim : 

"A street there is in Paris famous 

For which no rhyme our hinguage yields ; 
Eoo Nerve ehiy Petty Shong its name is — 
The New Street of the Little Fields. ..." 




"the LAUID OF cockpen" 



And then, in his keen appreciation of the immortal 
stanza, he chuckled audibly, with a face so blithe and 
merry and well pleased that it did one good to look at 
him. 

He also had entered life by another door. His pa- 
rents (good, pious people in Dundee) had intended that 



he should be ti sohcitor, as his father and grandfather 
had been before him. And here he was in Paris fa- 
mous, painting toreadors, and spouting the " Ballad 
of the Bouillabaisse," as he would often do out of 
sheer lightness of heart — much oftener, indeed, than 
he would say his prayers. 

Kneeling on the divan, with his elbow on the win- 
dow-sill, was a third and much younger youth. The 
third he was " Little Billee." He had pulled down 
the green baize blind, and was looking over the roofs 
and chimney-pots of Paris and all about with all his 
eyes, munching the while a roll and a savory saveloy, 
in which there was evidence of much garlic. He ate 
with great relish, for he was yery hungry ; he had 
been all the morning at Carrel's studio, drawing from 
the life. 

Little Billee was small and slender, about twent}^ or 
twenty-one, and had a straight white forehead veined 
with blue, large dark-blue eyes, delicate, regular feat- 
ures, and coal-black hair. He was also very graceful 
and well built, with very small hands and feet, and 
much better dressed than his friends, who went out 
of their way to outdo the denizens of the quartier 
latin in careless eccentricity of garb, and succeeded. 
And in his winning and handsome face there was just 
a faint suggestion of some possible very remote Jew- 
ish ancestor — just a tinge of that strong, sturdy, irre- 
pressible, indomitable, indelible blood which is of such 
priceless value in diluted homoeopathic doses, like the 
dry white Spanish wine called montijo, which is not 
meant to be taken pure ; but without a judicious ad- 
mixture of which no sherry can go round the world 



and keep its flavor intact ; or like the famous bull- 
dog strain, which is not beautiful in itself ; and yet 
just for lacking a little of the same no greyhound can 
ever hope to be a champion. So, at least, I have been 
told by wine-merchants and dog-fanciers — the most 
veracious persons that can be. Fortunately for the 
world, and especially for ourselves, most of us have 
in our veins at least a minim of that precious fluid, 
whether we know it or show it or not. Tant jpis jpour 
les autres ! 

As Little Billee munched he also gazed at the 
busy place below — the Place St. Anatole des Arts 
— at the old houses opposite, some of which were 
being pulled down, no doubt 
lest they should fall of their 
own sweet will. In the 
gaps between he would see 
discolored, old, cracked, din- 
gy walls, with mysterious 
windows and rusty iron bal- 
conies of great antiquity — 
sights that set him dream- 
ing dreams of mediasval 
French love and wickedness 
and crime, bygone mysteries 
of Paris ! 

One gap went right through 
the block, and gave him a 

glimpse of the river, the " Cite," and the ominous 
old Morgue ; a little to the right rose the gray tow- 
ers of Notre Dame de Paris into the checkered 
April sky. Indeed, the top of nearly all Paris lay 




''/^'^ 



"the third he was 
'little billee'" 



before him, with a little stretch of the imagination 
on his part ; and he gazed with a sense of novelt}'^, an 
interest and a pleasure for which he could not have 
found any expression in mere language. 

Paris ! Paris ! ! Paris ! ! ! 

The very name had always been one to conjure Avith, 
whether he thought of it as a mere sound on the lips 
and in the ear, or as a magical written or printed 
word for the eye. And here Avas the thing itself at 
last, and he, he himself, ipsissimus, in the very 
midst of it, to live there and learn there as long as 
he liked, and make himself the great artist lie longed 
to be. 

Then, his meal finished, he lit a pipe, and flung him- 
self on the divan and sighed deeply, out of the over- 
full contentment of his heart. 

lie felt he had never known happiness like this, 
never even dreamed its possibility. And yet his 
life had been a happy one. He w^as young and 
tender, was Little Billee ; he had never been to any 
school, and was innocent of the world and its wicked 
ways ; innocent of French especially, and the ways of 
Paris and its Latin quarter. He had been brought 
up and educated at home, had spent his boyhood 
in London Avith his mother and sister, Avho now 
lived in Devonshire on somewhat straitened means. 
His father, Avho Avas dead, had been a clerk in the 
Treasury. 

He and his tAvo friends, Taffy and the Laird, had 
taken this studio together. The Laird slept there, in a 
small bedroom off the studio. Taffy had a bedroom 
at the Hotel de Seine, in the street of that name. 



Vf 



Little Billee lodged at the Hotel Corneille, in the 
Place de TOdeon. 

He looked at his two friends, and wondered if 
any one, living or dead, had ever had such a glorious 
pair of chums as 
these. 

Whatever they 
did, whatever they 
said, was simply per- 
fect in his eyes ; they 
were his guides and 
philosophers as well 
as his chums. On 
the other hand, Taf- 
fy and the Laird 
were as fond of the 
boy as they could be. 

His absolute belief 
in all they said and 
did touched them 
none the less that 
they were conscious 
of its being some- 
what in excess of 
their deserts. His 
almost girlish purity 
of mind amused and 

charmed them, and they did all they could to preserve 
it, even in the quartier latin, where purity is apt to go 
bad if it be kept too long. 

They loved him for his affectionate disposition, his 
lively and caressing ways ; and they admired him far 




IT DID ONE GOOD TO LOOK AT HIM 



10 

more than he ever knew, for they recognized in him 
a quickness, a keenness, a delicacy of perception, in 
matters of form and color, a mysterious facility and 
felicity of execution, a sense of all that was sweet and 
beautiful in nature, and a ready power of expressing 
it, that had not been vouchsafed to them in any such 
generous profusion, and which, as they ungrudgingly 
admitted to themselves and each other, amounted to 
true genius. 

And when one within the immediate circle of our 
intimates is gifted in this abnormal fashion, we either 
hate or love him for it, in proportion to the greatness 
of his gift ; according to the way we are built. 

So Taffy and the Laird loved Little Billee — loved 
him very much indeed. Not but what Little Billee 
had his faults. For instance, he didn't interest him- 
self very warmly in other people's pictures. lie didn't 
seem to care for tlie Laird's guitar-playing toreador, 
nor for his serenaded lady — at all events, he never 
said anything about them, either in praise or blame. 
He looked at Taffy's realisms (for Taffy was a realist) 
in silence, and nothing tries true friendship so much 
as silence of this kind. 

But, then, to make up for it, when they all three 
went to the Louvre, he didn't seem to trouble much 
about Titian either, or Rembrandt, or Velasquez, Ru- 
bens, Veronese, or Leonardo. He looked at the people 
who looked at the pictures, instead of at the pictures 
themselves ; especially at the people who copied them, 
the sometimes charming young lady painters — and 
these seemed to him even more charming than they 
really were — and he looked a great deal out of the 



11 

Louvre windows, where there was much to be seen : 
more Paris, for instance — Pans, of which he could 
never have enough. 

But when, surfeited with classical beauty, they all 
three went and dined together, and Taffy and the 
Laird said beautiful things about the old masters, and 
quarrelled about them, he listened with deference and 
rapt attention, and reverentially agreed with all they 
said, and afterwards made the most delightfully funny 
little pen-and-ink sketches of them, saying all these 
beautiful things (which he sent to his mother and sis- 
ter at home) ; so life-like, so real, that you could al- 
most hear the beautiful things they said ; so beauti- 
fully drawn that you felt the old masters couldn't 
have drawn them better themselves ; and so irresist- 
ibly droll that you felt that the old masters could not 
have drawn them at all — any more than Milton could 
have described the quarrel between Sairey Gamp and 
Betsy Prig ; no one, in short, but Little Billee. 

Little Billee took up the " Ballad of the Bouilla- 
baisse " where the Laird had left it off, and speculated 
on the future of himself and his friends, when he 
should have got to forty years — an almost impossibly 
remote future. 

These speculations were interrupted by a loud knock 
at the door, and two men came in. 

First, a tall, bony individual of any age between 
thirty and forty-five, of Jewish aspect, well-featured 
but sinister. He was very shabby and dirty, and wore 
a red beret and a large velveteen cloak, with a big 
metal clasp at the collar. His thick, heavy, languid, 
lustreless black hair fell down behind his ears on to his 



12 

shoulders, in that musicianlike way that is so offensive 
to the normal Englishman. He had bold, brilliant 
black eyes, with long, heavy lids, a thin, sallow face, 
and a beard of burnt -up black which grew almost 
from his under eyelids ; and over it his mustache, a 
shade lighter, fell in two long spiral twists. He went 
by the name of Svengali, and spoke fluent French 
with a German accent, and humorous German twists 
and idioms, and his voice was very thin and mean and 
harsh, and often broke into a disagreeable falsetto. 

His companion was a little sw^arthy young man — a 
gyps3% possibly — much pitted with the smallpox, and 
also very shabby. He had large, soft, affectionate 
brown e^^es, like a King Charles sjmniel. He had 
small, nervous, veiny hands, with nails bitten down to 
the quick, and carried a fiddle and a fiddlestick under 
his arm, without a case, as though he had been play- 
ing in the street. 

" Ponchour, mes enfants," said Svengali. " Che vous 
amcne mon ami Checko, qui choue du fiolon gomme 
un anche !" 

Little Billee, Avho adored all " sweet musicianers," 
jumped up and made Gecko as warmly welcome as 
he could in his early French. 

" Ha ! le biuno !" exclaimed Svengali, flinging his red 
beret on it, and his cloak on the ground. " Ch'espdre 
qu'il est pon, et pien t'accord !" 

And sitting dow^n on the music-stool, he ran up and 
dowm the scales with that easy power, that smooth, 
even crispness of touch, which reveal the master. 

Then he fell to playing Chopin's impromptu in A 
flat, so beautifully that Little Billee's heart went nigh 




AMONG THE OLD MASTERS 



14 

to bursting with suppressed emotion and delight. He 
had never heard any music of Chopin's before, noth- 
ing but British provincial home-made music — melodies 
with variations, " Annie Laurie," " The Last Rose of 
Summer," " The Blue Bells of Scotland ;" innocent lit- 
tle motherly and sisterly tinklings, invented to set the 
compan}'' at their ease on festive evenings, and make 
all-round conversation possible for shy people; who 
fear the unaccompanied sound of their own voices, and 
whose genial chatter always leaves off directly the 
music ceases. 

He never forgot that impromptu, which he was 
destined to hear again one day in strange circum- 
stances. 

Then Svengali and Gecko made music together, di- 
vinely. Little fragmentary things, sometimes con- 
sisting but of a few bars, but these bars of such beauty 
and meaning ! Scraps, snatches, short melodies, meant 
to fetch, to charm immediately, or to melt or sadden 
or madden just for a moment, and that knew just 
when to leave off — czardas, gypsy dances, Hungarian 
love-plaints, things little known out of eastern Europe 
in the fifties of this century, till the Laird and Taflfy 
were almost as wild in their enthusiasm as Little Billee 
— a silent enthusiasm too deep for speech. And when 
these two great artists left off to smoke, the three 
Britishers were too much moved even for that, and 
there was a stillness. . . . 

Suddenly there came a loud knuckle-rapping at the 
outer door, and a portentous voice of great volume, 
and that might almost have belonged to any sex (even 
an angel's), uttered the British milkman's yodel, " Milk 



15 

below !" and before any one could say " Entrez," a 
strange figure appeared, framed by the gloom of the 
little antechamber. 

It was the figure of a very tall and fully developed 
young female, clad in the gray overcoat of a French 
infantry soldier, continued netherwards by a short 
striped petticoat, beneath which were visible her bare 
wliite ankles and insteps, and slim, straight, rosy heels, 
clean cut and smooth as the back of a razor ; her toes 
lost themselves in a huge pair of male list slippers, 
which made her drag her feet as she walked. 

She bore herself with easy, unembarrassed grace, 
like a person whose nerves and muscles are well in 
tune, whose spirits are high, who has lived much in 
the atmosphere of French studios, and feels at home 
in it. 

This strange medley of garments was surmounted 
by a small bare head with short, thick, wavy brown 
hair, and a very healthy young face, which could 
scarcely be called quite beautiful at first sight, since 
the eyes were too wide apart, the mouth too large, the 
chin too massive, the complexion a mass of freckles. 
Besides, you can never tell how beautiful (or how 
ugly) a face may be till you have tried to draw it. 

But a small portion of her neck, down by the collar- 
bone, which just showed itself between the unbuttoned 
lapels of her military coat collar, was of a delicate 
privetlike whiteness that is never to be found on any 
French neck, and very few English ones. Also, she 
had a very fine brow, broad and low, with thick level 
eyebrows much darker than her hair, a broad, bony, 
high bridge to her short nose, and her full, broad 



16 

cheeks were beautifully modelled. She would have 
made a singularly handsome boy. 

As the creature looked round at the assembled com- 
pany and flashed her big white teeth at them in an 
all-embracing smile of uncommon width and quite 
irresistible sweetness, simplicity, and friendly trust, 
one saw at a glance that she was out of the common 
clever, simple, humorous, honest, brave, and kind, and 
accustomed to be genially welcomed wherever she 
went. Then suddenly closing the door behind her, 
drop])ing her smile, and looking wistful and sweet, 
with her head on one side and her arms akimbo, 
" Ye're all English, now, aren't ye ?" she exclaimed. 
" I heard the music, and thought I'd just come in for 
a bit, and pass the time of day : you don't mind ? 
Trilb}^ that's my name — Trilby O'Ferrall." 

She said this in English, with an accent half Scotch 
and certain French intonations, and in a voice so rich 
and deep and full as almost to suggest an incipient 
tenore robusto; and one felt instinctively that it was 
a real pity she wasn't a boy, she would have made 
such a jolly one. 

" We're delighted, on the contrary," said Little 
Billee, and advanced a chair for her. 

But she said, ''Oh, don't mind me ; go on with the 
music," and sat herself down cross-legged on the 
model-throne near the piano. 

As they still looked at her, curious and half embar- 
rassed, she pulled a paper parcel containing food out 
of one of the coat-pockets, and exclaimed : 

" I'll just take a bite, if you don't object ; I'm a 
model, you know, and it's just rung twelve — ' the rest.' 




' WISTFUL AND SWEET 



18 

I'm posing for Durien the sculptor, on the next floor. 
I pose to him for the altogether," 

" The altogether ?" asked Little Billee. 

" Yes — rensemhle, you know — head, hands, and feet 
— everything — especially feet. That's my foot," she 
said, kicking off her big slipper and stretching out the 
limb, " It's the handsomest foot in all Paris, There's 
only one in all Paris to match it, and here it is," and 
she laughed heartily (like a merry peal of bells), and 
stuck out the other. 

And in truth they were astonishingly beautiful feet, 
such as one only sees in pictures and statues — a true 
inspiration of shape and color, all made up of deli- 
cate lengths and subtly modulated curves and noble 
straightnesses and happy little dimpled arrangements 
in innocent young pink and white. 

So that Little Billee, who had the quick, prehensile, 
aesthetic eye, and knew by the grace of Heaven what 
the shapes and sizes and colors of almost every bit of 
man, woman, or child should be (and so seldom are), 
was quite bewildered to tind that a real, bare, live 
human foot could be such a charming object to look 
at, and felt that such a base or pedestal lent quite an 
antique and Olympian dignity to a figure that seemed 
just then rather grotesque in its mixed attire of mil- 
itary overcoat and female petticoat, and nothing 
else! 

Poor Trilby ! 

The shape of those lovely slender feet (that were 
neither large nor small), fac-similed in dust}', pale plas- 
ter of Paris, survives on the shelves and walls of 
many a studio throughout the world, and many a 



19 

sculptor yet unborn has yet to marvel at their strange 
perfection, in studious despair. 

For when Dame Nature takes it into her head to 
do her very best, and bestow her minutest attention 
on a mere detail, as happens now and then — once in a 
blue moon, perhaps — she makes it uphill work for 
poor human art to keep pace with her. 

It is a wondrous thing, the human foot — like the 
human hand; even more so, perhaps; but, unlike the 
hand, with which we are so familiar, it is seldom a 
thing of beauty in civilized adults who go about in 
leather boots or shoes. 

So that it is hidden away in disgrace, a thing to be 
thrust out of sight and forgotten. It can sometimes 
be very ugly, indeed — the ugliest thing there is, even 
in the fairest and highest and most gifted of her sex; 
and then it is of an ugliness to chill and kill romance, 
and scatter young love's dream, and almost break the 
heart. 

And all for the sake of a high heel and a ridiculous- 
ly pointed toe — mean things, at the "best ! 

Conversely, when Mother Nature has taken extra 
pains in the building of it, and proper care or happy 
chance has kept it free of lamentable deformations, 
indurations, and discolorations — all those grewsome 
boot - begotten abominations which have made it so 
generally unpopular — the sudden sight of it, uncov- 
ered, comes as a very rare and singularly pleasing sur- 
prise to the eye that has learned how to see ! 

Nothing else that Mother Nature has to show, not 
even the human face divine, has more subtle power to 
suggest high physical distinction, happy evolution, and 



20 

supreme development ; the lordship of man over beast, 
the lordship of man over man, the lordship of woman 
over all ! 

En voild, de V eloqtience — dprojws de hottes ! 

Trilby had respected Mother Nature's special gift to 
herself — had never woi'ii a leather boot or shoe, had 
always taken as much care of her feet as many a fine 
lad}'' takes of her hands. It was her one coquetry, 
the only real vanity she had. 

Gecko, his fiddle in one hand and his bow in the 
other, stared at her in open-mouthed admiration and 
delight, as she ate her sandwich of soldier's bread and 
fromage a la creme quite unconcerned. 

When she had finished she licked the tips of her 
fingers clean of cheese, and produced a small tobacco- 
pouch from another military pocket, and made her- 
self a cigarette, and lit it and smoked it, inhaling the 
smoke in large whiffs, filling her lungs with it, and 
sending it back through her nostrils, with a look of 
great beatitude. 

Svengali played Schubert's " Kosemonde," and flash- 
ed a pair of languishing black eyes at her with intent 
to kill. 

But she didn't even look his way. She looked at Lit- 
tle Billee, at big Taffy, at the Laird, at the casts and 
studies, at the sky, the chimney-pots over the way, the 
towers of Notre Dame, just visible from where she sat. 

Only when he finished she exclaimed: "Maie, aie! 
e'est rudement bien tape, c'te musique-la ! Seulement, 
c'est pas gai, vous savez ! Comment q'ga s'appelle V 

"It is called the 'Eosemonde' of Schubert, mate- 
moisellej" replied Svengali. (I will translate.) 




"nrnojl ji 



23 

"And what's that — Rosemonde?" said she. 

" Rosemonde was a princess of Cyprus, inatemoiselle, 
and Cyprus is an island/' 

" Ah, and Schubert, then — where's that ?" 

" Schubert is not an island, raatemoiselle. Schubert 
was a compatriot of mine, and made music, and played 
the piano, just like me." 

" Ah, Schubert was a monsieur, then. Don't know 
him ; never heard his name." 

" That is a pity, matemoiselle. He had some talent. 
You like this better, perhaps," and he strummed, 

"Messieurs les etudiants, 
S'en vont h la chaumiere 
Pour y danser le cancan," 

striking wrong notes, and banging out a bass in a dif- 
ferent key — a hideously grotesque performance. 

" Yes, I like that better. It's gayer, you know. Is 
that also composed by a compatriot of yours ?" asked 
the lady. 

" Heaven forbid, raatemoiselle." 

And the laugh was against Svengali. 

But the real fun of it all (if there was any) lay in 
the fact that she was perfectly sincere. 

" Are you fond of music ?" asked Little Billee. 

"Oh, ain't I, just!" she replied. "My father sang 
like a bird. He was a gentleman and a scholar, my 
father was. His name was Patrick Michael O'Ferrall, 
fellow of Trinity, Cambridge. He used to sing ' Ben 
Bolt.' Do you know ' Ben Bolt ' ?" 

"Oh yes, I know it well," said Little Billee. "It's 
a very pretty song." 



23 

" I can sing it," said Miss O'Ferrall. " Shall I ?" 
" Oh, certainly, if you will be so kind." 
Miss O'Ferrall threw away the end of her cigarette, 
put her hands on her knees as she sat cross-legged on 
the model - throne, and sticking her elbows well out, 
she looked up to the ceiling with a tender, sentimental 
smile, and sang the touching song, 

"Oh, don't you remember sweet Alice, Ben Bolt? 
Sweet Alice, witli hair so brown ?" etc., etc. 

As some things are too sad and too deep for tears, 
so some things are too grotesque and too funny for 
laughter. Of such a kind was Miss O'Ferrall's per- 
formance of " Ben Bolt." 

From that capacious mouth and through that high- 
bridged bony nose, there rolled a volume of breathy 
sound, not loud, but so immense that it seemed to 
come from all round, to be reverberated from every 
surface in the studio. She followed more or less the 
shape of the tune, going up when it rose and down 
when it fell, but with such immense intervals between 
the notes as were never dreamed of in any mortal 
melody. It was as though she could never once have 
deviated into tune, never once have hit upon a true 
note, even by a fluke — in fact, as though she Avere 
absolutely tone-deaf and without ear, although she 
stuck to the time correctly enough. 

She finished her song amid an embarrassing silence. 
The audience didn't quite know whether it were meant 
for fun or seriously. One wondered if she were not 
paying out Svengali for his impertinent performance 



34 

of " Messieurs les etudiants." If so, it was a capital 
piece of impromptu tit-for-tat admirably acted, and a 
very ugly gleam yellowed the tawny black of Sven- 
gali's big eyes. He was so fond of making fun of 
others that he particularly resented being made fun of 
himself — couldn't endure that any one should ever 
have the laugh of him. 

At length Little Billee said : " Thank you so much. 
It is a capital song." 

" Yes," said Miss O'Ferrall. "It's the only song I 
know, unfortunately. My father used to sing it, just 
like that, when he felt jolly after hot rum and water. 
It used to make people cry ; he used to cry over it 
himself, /never do. Some people think I can't sing 
a bit. All I can say is that I've often had to sing 
it six or seven times running in lots of studios. I 
vary it, you know — not the words, but the tune. You 
must remember that I've only taken to it lately. 
Do you know Litolff ? Well, he's a great composer, 
and he came to Durien's the other day, and I sang 
' Ben Bolt,' and what do you think he said i Why, 
he said Madame Alboni couldn't go nearly so high 
or so low as I did, and that her voice wasn't half so 
strong. He gav^e me his word of honor. He said I 
breathed as natural and straight as a baby, and all I 
want is to get my voice a little more under control. 
That's what he said." 

"Qu'est-ce qu'elle dit?" asked Svengali. And she 
said it all over again to him in French — quite French 
French — of the most colloquial kind. Her accent was 
not that of the Comedie Franpaise, nor yet that of the 
Faubourg St. Germain, nor yet that of the pavement. 



25 

It was quaint and expressive — " funny without being 
vulgar," 

"Barpleu! he was right, Litolff," said Svengali. 
" I assure you, matemoiselle, that I have never heard 
a voice that can equal yours ; you have a talent quite 
exceptional." 

She blushed with pleasure, and the others thought 
him a " beastly cad " for poking fun at the poor girl 
in such a way. And they thought MoBsieur Litolff 
another. 

She then got up and shook the crumbs off her coat, 
and slipped her feet into Durien's slippers, saying, in 
English : " Well, Fve got to go back. Life ain't all 
beer and skittles, and more's the pity ; but what's the 
odds, so long as youVe happy ?" 

On her way out she stopped before Taffy's picture 
— a chiffonnier with his lantern bending over a dust 
heap. For Taffy Avas, or thought himself, a passion- 
ate realist in those daj's. He has chaDged, and now 
paints nothing but King Arthurs and Guineveres and 
Lancelots and Elaines and floating Ladies of Shalott. 

" That chiffonnier's basket isn't hitched high enough," 
she remarked. " How could he tap his pick against 
the rim and make the rag fall into it if it's hitched 
only half-way up his back? And he's got the wrong 
sabots, and the wrong lantern ; it's all wrong." 

" Dear me !" said Taffy, turning very red ; " you 
seem to know a lot about it. It's a pity you don't 
paint, yourself." 

" Ah ! now you're cross !" said Miss O'FerralL " Oh, 
maie, aie !" 

She went to the door and paused, looking round 



26 

benignly. " What nice teeth you've all three got 
That's because you're Englishmen, I suppose, and 
clean them twice a day. I do too. Trilby O'Ferrall, 
that's ray name, 48 Rue des Pousse-Cailloux ! — pose 
pour I'ensemble, quand 9a I'amuse ! va-t-en ville, et fait 
tout ce qui concerne son etat ! Don't forget. Thanks 
all, and good-bye." 

" En v'la une orichinale," said Svengali. 

" I think she's lovely," said Little Billee, the young 
and tender. " Oh, heavens, what angel's feet ! It 
makes me sick to think she sits for the figure. I'm 
sure she's quite a lady." 

And in five minutes or so, with the point of an old 
compass, he scratched in white on the dark red wall 
a three-quarter profile outline of Trilby's left foot, 
which was perhaps the more perfect poem of the 
two. 

Slight as it was, this little piece of impromptu etch- 
ing, in its sense of beauty, in its quick seizing of a pe- 
culiar individuality, its subtle rendering of a strongly 
received impression, was already the work of a master. 
It was Trilby's foot, and nobody else's, nor could have 
been, and nobody else but Little Billee could have 
drawn it in just that inspired way. 

" Qu'est-ce que c'est, ' Ben Bolt ' ?" inquired Gecko. 

Upon which Little Billee was made by Taffy to 
sit down to the piano and sing it. He sang it very 
nicely with his pleasant little throaty English bary- 
tone. 

It was solely in order that Little Billee should have 
opportunities of practising this graceful accomplish- 
ment of his, for his own and his friends' delectation, 




TRILBY -S LEFT FOOT 



28 

that the piano had been sent over from London, at 
great cost to Taffy and the Laird. It had belonged to 
Taffy's mother, who was dead. 

Before he had finished the second verse, Svengah 
exclaimed: "Mais c'est tout-a-fait chentil! AUons, 
Gecko, chouez-nous 9a !" 

And he put his big hands on the piano, over Little 
Billee's, pushed him off the music-stool with his great 
gaunt body, and, sitting on it himself, he played a 
masterly prelude. It was impressive to hear the com 
plicated richness and volume of the sounds he evoked 
after Little Billee's gentle "tink-a-tink." 

And Gecko, cuddling lovingly his violin and closing 
his upturned eyes, played that simple melody as it had 
probably never been played before— such passion, such 
pathos, such a tone ! — and they turned it and twisted 
it, and went from one key to another, playing into 
each other's hands, Svengali taking the lead ; and 
fugued and canoned and counterpointed and battle- 
doored and shuttlecocked it, high and low, soft and 
loud, in minor, in pizzicato, and in sordino — adagio, 
andante, allegretto, scherzo — and exhausted all its 
possibilities of beauty ; till their susceptible audience 
of three was all but crazed with delight and wonder; 
and the masterful Ben Bolt, and his over-tender Alice, 
and his too submissive friend, and his old school- 
master so kind and so true, and his long-dead school- 
mates, and the rustic porch and the mill, and the slab 
of granite so gray, 

" And the dear little nook 
By the clear running brook," 



29 

were all magnified into a strange, almost holy poetic 
dignity and splendor quite undreamed of by whoever 
wrote the words and music of that unsophisticated 
little song, which has touched so many simple British 
hearts that don't know any better — and among them, 
once, that of the present scribe— long, long ago! 

"Sacrepleu! il choue pien, le Checko, hein?''said 
Svengali, when they had brought this wonderful 
double improvisation to a climax and a close. '' C'est 
mon elefe! che le fais chanter sur son fiolon, c'est 
comme si c'etait moi qui chantais ! ach ! si ch'afais 
pour teux sous de voix, che serais le bremier chanteur 
du monte! I cannot sing!" he continued. (I will 
translate him into English, without attempting to 
translate his accent, which is a mere matter of judi- 
ciously transposing p's and b's, and t's and d's, and f s 
and v's, and g's and k's, and turning the soft French j 
into sch, and a pretty language into an ugly one.) 

" I cannot sing myself, I cannot play the violin, but 
I can teach — hein. Gecko ? And I have a pupil — hein, 
Gecko? — la betite Ilonorine;" and here he leered all 
round with a leer that was not engaging. "The 
world shall hear of la betite Honorine some day— 
hein, Gecko ? Listen all — this is how I teach la betite 
Ilonorine ! Gecko, play me a little accompaniment in 
pizzicato." 

And he pulled out of his pocket a kind of little flex- 
ible flageolet (of his own invention, it seems), which 
he screwed together and put to his lips, and on this 
humble instrument he played " Ben Bolt," while Gecko 
accompanied him, using his fiddle as a guitar, his ador- 
ing eyes fixed in reverence on his master. 



30 

And it would be impossible to render in any words 
the deftness, the distinction, the grace, power, pathos, 
and passion with which this truly phenomenal artist 
executed the poor old twopenny tune on his elastic 
penny whistle — for it Avas little more — such thrilling, 
vibrating, piercing tenderness, now loud and full, a 
shrill scream of anguish, now soft as a whisper, a mere 
melodic breath, more human almost than the human 
voice itself, a perfection unattainable even by Gecko, 
a master, on an instrument which is the acknowledged 
king of all ! 

So that the tear which had been so close to the 
brink of Little Billee's eye while Gecko was playing 
now" rose and trembled under his eyelid and spdled 
itself down his nose; and he had to dissemble and 
surreptitiously mop it up with his little finger as he 
leaned his chin on his hand, and cough a little husky, 
unnatural cough— ^ow^^ se donner une contenance ! 

He had never heard such music as this, never 
dreamed such music was possible. He was conscious, 
while it lasted, that he saw deeper into the beauty, 
the sadness of things, the very heart of them, and 
their pathetic evanescence, as with a new, inner eye — 
even into eternity itself, beyond the veil — a vague 
cosmic vision that faded when the music was over, 
but left an unfading reminiscence of its having been, 
and a passionate desire to express the like some day 
through the plastic medium of his own beautiful 
art. 

When Svengali ended, he leered again on his dumb- 
struck audience, and said : " That is how I teach la 
beiite Honorine to sing; that is how I teach Gecko 



33 

to play ; that is how I teach 'il hel canto \f It was 
lost, the bel canto— but I found it, in a dream — ^I, and 
nobody else — I — S Bengali — I — I — // But that is 
enough of music ; let us play at something else — let us 
play at this !" he cried, jumping up and seizing a foil 
and bending it against the wall. . . . '* Come along. 
Little Pillee, and I will show you something more you 
don't know. . . ." 

So Little Billee took off coat and waistcoat, donned 
mask and glove and fencing-shoes, and they had an 
"assault of arms," as it is nobly called in French, and 
in which poor Little Billee came off very badly. The 
German Pole fenced wildly, but well. 

Then it was the Laird's turn, and he came off badly 
too ; so then Taffy took up the foil, and redeemed the 
honor of Great Britain, as became a British hussar 
and a Man of Blood. For Taffy, by long and assidu- 
ous practice in the best school in Paris (and also by 
virtue of his native aptitudes), was a match for any 
maitre d'armes in the whole French army, and Sven- 
gali got " what for." 

And when it was time to give up play and settle 
down to work, others dropped in — French, English, 
Swiss, German, American, Greek ; curtains were drawn 
and shutters opened ; the studio was flooded with 
light — and the afternoon was healthily spent in ath- 
letic and gymnastic exercises till dinner-time. 

But Little Billee, who had had enough of fencing 
and gymnastics for the day, amused himself by filling 
up with black and white and red chalk -strokes the 
outline of Trilby's foot on the wall, lest he should for- 
get his fresh vision of it, which was still to him as the 



33 

thing itself — an absolute reality, born of a mere glance, 
a mere chance. 

Durien came in and looked over his shoulder, and 
exclaimed : " Tiens ! le pied de Trilby ! vous avez fait 
9a d'apres nature ?" 

"Nong!" 

"De memoire, alors?" 

" Wee !" 

" Je vous en fais mon compliment! Vous avez eu 
la main heureuse. Je voudrais bien avoir fait 9a, moi ! 
C'est un petit chef-d'oeuvre que vous avez fait la — tout 
bonnement, mon cher ! Mais vous elaborez trop. De 
grace, n'y touch ez plus !" 

And Little Billee was pleased, and touched it no 
more ; for Durien was a great sculptor, and sincerity 
itself. 

And then — well, I happen to forget what sort of 
day this particular day turned into at about six of 
the clock. 

If it was decently fine, the most of them went oflP 
to dine at the Kestaurant de la Couronne, kept by 
the Pere Trin, in the Rue de Monsieur, who gave 
you of his best to eat and drink for twenty sols 
Parisis, or one franc in the coin of the empire. Good 
distending soups, omelets that were only too savory, 
lentils, red and white beans, meat so dressed and 
sauced and seasoned that you didn't know whether it 
were beef or mutton — flesh, fowl, or good red herring — 
or even bad, for that matter — nor very greatly care. 

And just the same lettuce, .radishes, and cheese of 
Gruyere or Brie as you got at the Trois Freres Pro- 
3 



34 



venyaux (but not the same butter!). And to wash 
it all down, generous wine in wooden " brocs " — that 
stained a lovely aesthetic blue everything it was 
spilled over. 

And you hobnobbed with models, male and female, 
students of law and medicine, painters and sculptors, 




THE BRIDGE OF AUTS 



workmen and blanchis- 
seuses and grisettes, 
and found them very 
good company, and 
most improving to 
your French, if your 
French was of the usual British kind, and even to 
some of your manners, if these were very British in- 
deed. And the evening was innocently wound up 
with billiards, cards, or dominos at the Cafe du Lux- 
embourg opposite ; or at the Theatre du Luxembourg, 
in the Rue de Madame, to see funny farces with 
screamingly droll Englishmen in them ; or, still bet- 
ter, at the Jardin Bullicr (la Closerie des Lilas), to 



35 

see the students dance the cancan, or try and dance 
it yourself, which is not so easy as it seems ; or, best 
of all, at the Theatre de I'Odeou, to see some piece of 
classical Tepertoire. 

Or, if it were not only fine, but a Saturday after- 
noon into the bargain, the Laird would put on a neck- 
tie and a Iqw other necessary things, and the three 
friends would walk arm in arm to Taffy's hotel in the 
Eue de Seine, and wait outside till he had made him- 
self as presentable as the Laird, which did not take 
very long. And then (Little Billee was always pre- 
sentable) they would, arm in arm, the huge Taffy in 
the middle, descend the Rue de Seine and cross a 
bridge to the Cite, and have a look in at the Morgue. 
Then back again to the quays on the rive gauche by 
the Pont Neuf, to wend their way westward ; now on 
one side to look at the print and picture shops and 
the magasins of bric-a-brac, and haply sometimes buy 
thereof, now on the other to finger and cheapen the 
second-hand books for sale on the parapet, and even 
pick up one or two utterly unwanted bargains, never 
to be read or opened again. 

When they reached the Pont des Arts they would 
cross it, stopping in the middle to look up the river 
towards the old Cite and Notre Dame, eastward, and 
dream unutterable things, and try to utter them. 
Then, turning westward, they would gaze at the glow- 
ing sky and all it glowed upon — the corner of the Tui- 
leries and the Louvre, the many bridges, the Chamber 
of Deputies, the golden river narrowing its perspec- 
tive and broadening its bed as it went flowing and 
winding on its way between Passy and Grenelle to 



36 

St. Cloud, to Eouen, to the Havre, to England per- 
haps — where they didn't want to be just then; and 
they would try and express themselves to the effect 
that life was uncommonly well worth living in that 
particular city at that particular time of the day and 
year and century, at that particular epoch of their 
own mortal and uncertain lives. 

Then, still arm in arm and chatting gayly, across 
the court- yard of the Louvre, through gilded gates 
well guarded by reckless imperial Zouaves, up the ar- 
caded Kue de Kivoli as far as the Eue Castiglione, 
where they would stare with greedy eyes at the win- 
dow of the great corner pastry-cook, and marvel at 
the beautiful assortment of bonbons, pralines, dragees, 
marrons glaces — saccharine, crystalline substances of 
all kinds and colors, as charming to look at as an il- 
lumination ; precious stones, delicately frosted sweets, 
pearls and diamonds so arranged as to melt in the 
mouth ; especially, at this particular time of the 
year, the monstrous Easter -eggs of enchanting hue, 
enshrined like costly jewels in caskets of satin and 
gold ; and the Laird, who was well read in his English 
classics and liked to show it, would opine that " they 
managed these things better in France." 

Then across the street by a great gate into the AUee 
des Feuillants, and up to the Place de la Concorde — 
to gaze, but quite w^ithout base envy, at the smart peo- 
ple coming back from the Bois de Boulogne. For 
even in Paris " carriage people " have a way of look- 
ing bored, of taking their pleasure sadly, of having 
nothing to say to each other, as though the vibration 
of so many wheels all rolling home the same way 



37 

every afternoon had hypnotized them into silence, 
idiocy, and melancholia. 

And our three musketeers of the brush would spec- 
ulate on the vanity of wealth and rank and fashion; 
on the satiety that follows in the wake of self-indul- 
gence and overtakes it ; on the weariness of the pleas- 
ures that become a toil — as if they knew all about it, 
had found it all out for themselves, and nobody else 
had ever found it out before! 

Then they found out something else — namely, that 
the sting of healthy appetite was becoming intoler- 
able; so they would betake themselves to an English 
eating-house in the Eue de la Madeleine (on the left- 
hand side near the top), where the}' Avould renovate 
their strength and their patriotism on British beef and 
beer, and household bread, and bracing, biting, sting- 
ing yellow mustard, and horseradish, and noble apple- 
pie, and Cheshire cheese ; and get through as much 
of these in an hour or so as thev could for talkino- 
talking, talking ; such happy talk ! as full of sanguine 
hope and enthusiasm, of cocksure commendation or 
condemnation of all painters, dead or alive, of modest 
but firm belief in themselves and each other, as a 
Paris Easter-egg is full of sweets and pleasantness (for 
the young). 

And then a stroll on the crowded, well -lighted 
boulevards, and a bock at the cafe there, at a lit- 
tle three-legged marble table right out on the gen- 
ial asphalt pavement, still talking nineteen to the 
dozen. 

Then home by dark, old, silent streets and some 
deserted bridge to their beloved Latin quarter, the 



38 

Morgue gleaming cold and still and fatal in the pale 
lamplight, and Notre Dame pricking up its watchful 
twin towers, which have looked down for so many 
centuries on so many happy, sanguine, expansive 
youths walking arm in arm by twos and threes, and 
forever talking, talking, talking. , . . 

The Laird and Little Billee would see Taffy safe 
to the door of his hotel garni in the Eue de Seine, 
where they would find much to say to each other be- 
fore they said good -night — so much that Taffy and 
Little Billee w^ould see the Laird safe to his door, in 
the Place St. Anatole des Arts. And then a discus- 
sion would arise between TaflPy and the Laird on the 
immortality of the soul, let us say, or the exact mean- 
ing of the word " gentleman," or the relative merits 
of Dickens and Thackeray, or some such recondite and 
quite unhackneyed theme, and Taffy and the Laird 
would escort Little Billee to his door, in the Place de 
rOdeon, and he would re-escort them both back again, 
and so on till any hour you please. 

Or again, if it rained, and Paris through the studio 
window loomed lead-colored, with its shiny slate roofs 
under skies that were ashen and sober, and the wild 
west wind made woful music among the chimney-pots, 
and little gray waves ran up the river the wrong way, 
and the Morgue looked chill and dark and wet, and 
almost uninviting (even to three healthy-minded young 
Britons), they would resolve to dine and spend a hap- 
py evening at home. 

Little Billee, taking with him three francs (or even 
four), would dive into back streets and buy a 3'ard or 




'three musketeers of the brush 



40 

SO of crusty new bread, well burned on the flat side, 
a fillet of beef, a litre of wine, potatoes and onions, 
butter, a little cylindrical cheese called " bondon de 
Neufchatel," tender curly lettuce, with chervil, parsley, 
spring onions, and other fine herbs, and a pod of gar- 
lic, which would be rubbed on a crust of bread to fiavor 
things with. 

Taffy would lay the cloth Englishwise, and also 
make the salad, for which, like everybody else I ever 
met, he had a special receipt of his own (putting in 
the oil first and the vinegar after) ; and indeed his 
salads were quite as good as everybody else's. 

The Laird, bending over the stove, would cook the 
onions and beef into a savory Scotch mess so cunning- 
ly that you could not taste the beef for the onions — 
nor always the onions for the garlic ! 

And they would dine far better than at le Pere 
Trin's, far better than at the English Restaurant in 
the Rue de la Madeleine — better than anywhere else 
on earth ! 

And after dinner, what coffee, roasted and ground 
on the spot, what pipes and cigarettes of " caporal," 
by the light of the three shaded lamps, while the rain 
beat against the big north window, and the wind went 
howling round the quaint old mediaeval tower at the 
corner of the Rue Vieille des Mauvais Ladres (the okl 
street of the bad lepers), and the damp logs hissed and 
crackled in the stove ! 

What jolly talk into the small hours ! Thackeray 
and Dickens again, and Tennyson and Byron (who 
was " not dead yet " in those days) ; and Titian and 
Yelasquez, and young Millais and Holman Hunt (just 



41 

out); and Monsieur Ingres and Monsieur Delacroix, 
and Balzac and Stendahl and George Sand ; and the 
good Dumas ! and Edgar Allan Poe ; and the glory 
that was Greece and the grandeur that was Kome. . . . 

Good, honest, innocent, artless prattle — not of the 
wisest, perhaps, nor redolent of the very highest cult- 
ure (which, by-the-way, can mar as well as make), nor 
leading to any very practical result ; but quite pathet- 
ically sweet from the sincerity and fervor of its con- 
victions, a profound belief in their importance, and a 
proud trust in their life-long immutability. 

Oh, happy days and happy nights, sacred to art and 
friendship ! oh, happy times of careless impecuniosit}'-, 
and youth and hope and health and strength and free- 
dom — with all Paris for a playground, and its dear old 
unregenerate Latin quarter for a workshop and a home ! 

And, up to then, no kill-joy complications of love! 

No, decidedly no ! Little Billee had never known 
such happiness as this — never even dreamed of its pos- 
sibility. 

A day or two after this, our opening day, but in the 
afternoon, when the fencing and boxing had begun 
and the trapeze was in full swing. Trilby's " Milk be- 
low!" was sounded at the door, and she appeared — 
clothed this time in her right mind, as it seemed : a 
tall, straight, flat-backed, square-shouldered, deep-chest- 
ed, full-bosomed young grisette, in a snowy frilled cap, 
a neat black gown and white apron, pretty faded, well- 
darned, brown stockings, and well-worn, soft, gray, 
square-toed slippers of list, without heels and origi- 
nally shapeless ; but which her feet, uncompromising 



43 

and inexorable as boot-trees, had ennobled into ever- 
lasting classic shapeliness, and stamped with an un- 
forgettable individuality, as does a beautiful hand its 
well-worn glove — a fact Little Billee was not slow to 
perceive, with a curious conscious thrill that was only 
half aesthetic. 

Then he looked into her freckled face, and met the 
kind and tender mirthfulness of her gaze and the 
plucky frankness of her fine wide smile with a thrill 
that was not aesthetic at all (nor the reverse), but all 
of the heart. And in one of his quick flashes of intui- 
tive insight he divined far down beneath the shinino^ 
surface of those eyes (which seemed for a moment to 
reflect only a little image of himself against the sky 
beyond the big north window) a well of sweetness; 
and floating somewhere in the midst of it the very 
heart of compassion, generosity, and warm sisterly 
love ; and under that — alas ! at the bottom of all — a 
thin slimy layer of sorrow and shame. And just as 
long as it takes for a tear to rise and gather and choke 
itself back again, this sudden revelation shook his ner- 
vous little frame with a pang of pity, and the knightly 
wish to help. But he had no time to indulge in such 
soft emotions. Trilby was met on her entrance by 
friendly greetings on all sides. 

" Tiens ! c'est la grande Trilby !" exclaimed Jules 
Guinot through his fencing-mask. "Comment! t'es 
deja debout apres heir soir? Avons-nous assez rigole 
chez Mathieu, hein ? Crenom d'un nom, quelle noce ! 
Via une cremaillere qui pent se vanter d'etre dian- 
trement bien pendue, j'espere ! Et la petite sante, c' 
matin ?" 



43 



" He, he ! raon vieux," answered Trilby. " ^a bou- 
lotte, apparemment ! Et toi ? et Victorine ? Comment 
qu'a s' porte a c't'heure ? Elle avait un fier coup d'chas- 
selas! e'est-y jobard, hein? de s' fich 'paf comme 9a 
d'vant r monde ! Tiens, v'la, Gontran ! 9a marche-t-y, 
Gontran, Zouzou d' mon 
coeur ?" 

" Comme snr des roulettes, 
ma biche!" said Gontran, 
alias V Zouzou — a corporal 
in the Zouaves. " Mais tu 
t'es done mise chiffonniere, 
a present? T'as fait ban- 
queroute f 

(For Trilby had a chiffon- 
nier's basket strapped on her 
back, and carried a pick and 
lantern.) 

" Mais-z-oui, mon bon !" 
she said. " Dame ! pas d' 
veine hier soir! t'as bienvu! 
Dans la deche jusqu'aux om- 
oplates, mon pauv' caporal- 
sous-off! nom d'un canon — 
faut bien vivre, s' pas ?" 

Little Billee's heart sluices 
bad closed during this inter- 
change of courtesies. He 
felt it to be of a very slangy 

kind, because he couldn't understand a word of it, 
and he hated slang. All he could make out was 
the free use of the " tu " and the " toi," and he knew 




TAFFY MAKES THE SALAD 



44 

enough French to know that this implied a great 
famiharity, which he misunderstood. 

So that Jules Guinot's polite inquiries whether Trilby 
were none the worse after Mathieu's house-warming 
(which was so jolly), Trilby's kind solicitude about 
the health of Yictorine, who had very foolishl}^ taken 
a drop too much on that occasion, Trilby's mock re- 
grets that her own bad luck at cards had made it 
necessary that she should retrieve her fallen fortunes 
by rag-picking — all these innocent, playful little amen- 
ities (which I have tried to write down just as they 
were spoken) were couched in a language that was as 
Greek to him — and he felt out of it, jealous and in- 
dignant. 

" Good-afternoon to you, Mr. Taffy," said Trilby, in 
English. "I've brought 3"ou these objects of art and 
virtu to make the peace with you. They're the real 
thing, you know, I borrowed 'em from le pere Mar- 
tin, chiffonnier en gros et en detail, grand officier de 
la Legion d'Honneur, membre de I'lnstitut, et cetera, 
treize bis, Rue du Puits d' Amour, rez-de-chaussee, au 
fond de la cour a gauche, vis-a-vis le mont-de-piete ! 
He's one of my intimate friends, and — " 

" You don't mean to say you're the intimate friend 
of a Tog-jpicker V exclaimed the good Taffy. 

" Oh yes ! Pourquoi pas ? I never brag ; besides, 
there ain't any beastly pride about le pere Martin," 
said Trilby, with a wink. " You'd soon find that out 
if you were an intimate friend of his. This is how it's 
put on. Do you see ? If yow'U put it on, I'll fasten it 
for you, and show you how to hold the lantern and 
handle the pick. You may come to it yourself some 



45 

day, you know. II ne faut jurer de rien ! Pere Mar- 
tin will pose for you in person, if you like. He's gen- 
erally disengaged in the afternoon. He's poor but 
honest, you know, and very nice and clean ; quite the 
gentleman. He likes artists, especially English — they 
pay. His wife sells bric-a-brac and old masters: 
Kerabrandts from two francs fifty upwards. They've 
got a little grandson — a love of a child. I'm his god- 
mother. You know French, I suppose?" 

" Oh yes," said Taffy, much abashed. " I'm very 
much obliged to you — very much indeed — a — I — a — " 

" y a pas d' quoi !" said Trilby, divesting herself of 
her basket and putting it, with the pick and lantern, 
in a corner. " Et main ten ant, le temps d'absorber 
une fine de tin sec [a cigarette] et je m' la brise [I'm 
off]. On m'attend a I'Ambassade d'Autriche. Et 
puis zut! Allez toujours, mes enfants. En avant 
la boxe !" 

She sat herself down cross-legged on the model- 
throne, and made herself a cigarette, and watched the 
fencing and boxing. Little Billee brought her a chair, 
which she refused ; so he sat down on it himself by her 
side, and talked to her, just as he would have talked 
to any young lady at home — about the weather, about 
Yerdi's new opera (which she had never heard), the 
impressiveness of Notre Dame, and Yictor Hugo's 
beautiful romance (which she had never read), the 
mysterious charm of Leonardo da Yinci's Lisa Gio- 
conda's smile (which she had never seen) — by all of 
which she was no doubt rather tickled and a little em- 
barrassed, perhaps also a little touched. 

Taffy brought her a cup of coffee, and conversed 



46 

with her in polite formal French, very well and care- 
fully pronounced ; and the Laird tried to do likewise. 
His French was of that honest English kind that 
breaks up the stiffness of even an English party ; and 
his jolly manners were such as to put an end to all 
shyness and constraint, and make self- consciousness 
impossible. 

Others dropped in from neighboring studios — the 
usual cosmopolite crew. It was a perpetual come 
and go in this particular studio between four and six 
in the afternoon. 

There were ladies, too, en cheveux, in caps and bon- 
nets, some of whom knew Trilby, and thee'd and 
tliou'd with familiar and friendly affection, while others 
mademoiselle'd her with distant politeness, and were 
mademoiselle'd and madame'd back again. " Absolu- 
ment comme a I'Ambassade d'Autriche," as Trilby ob- 
served to the Laird, with a British wink that was by 
no means ambassadorial. 

Then Svengali came and made some of his grandest 
music, which was as completely thrown away on 
Trilby as fireworks on a blind beggar, for all she 
held her tongue so piously. 

Fencing and boxing and trapezing seemed to be 
more in her line; and indeed, to a tone-deaf person, 
Taffy lunging his full spread with a foil, in all the 
splendor of his long, lithe, youthful strength, was a far 
gainlier sight than Svengali at the key-board flashing 
his languid bold eyes with a sickly smile from one 
listener to another, as if to say : " N'est-ce pas que che 
suis peau ! N'est-ce pas que ch'ai tu chenie ? N'est-ce 
pas que che suis suplime, enfin V 



48 

Then enter Durien the sculptor, who had been pre- 
sented with a baignoire at the Porte St. Martin to see 
" La Dame aux Camelias," and he invited Trilby and 
another lady to dine with him "au cabaret" and 
share his box. 

So Trilby didn't go to the Austrian embassy after 
all, as the Laird observed to Little Billee, with such a 
good imitation of her wink that Little Billee was bound 
to laugh. 

But Little Billee was not inclined for fun ; a dul- 
ness, a sense of disenchantment, had come over him ; 
as he expressed it to himself, with pathetic self-pity ; 

"A feeling of sadness and longing 
That is not akin to pain, 
And resembles sorrow only 

As the mist resembles the rain." 

And the sadness, if he had known, was that all beau- 
tiful young women with kind sweet faces and noble 
figures and goddess-like extremities should not be good 
and pure as they were beautiful ; and the longing was 
a longing that Trilby could be turned into a young 
lady — say the vicar's daughter in a little Devonshire 
village — his sister's friend and co-teacher at the Sun- 
day-school ; a simple, pure, and pious maiden of gentle 
birth. 

For he adored piety in woman, although he was not 
pious by any means. His inarticulate, intuitive per- 
ceptions were not of form and color secrets only, but 
strove to pierce the veil of deeper mysteries in impetu- 
ous and dogmatic boyish scorn of all received interpre- 
tations. For he flattered himself that he possessed the 



49 

philosophical and scientific mind, and piqued himself 
on thinking clearl}^ and was intolerant of human in- 
consistency. 

That small reserve portion of his ever-active brain 
which should have lain fallow while the rest of it was 
at work or play, perpetually plagued itself about the 
mysteries of life and death, and was forever propound- 
ing unanswerable arguments against the Christian be- 
lief, through a kind of inverted sympathy with the 
believer. Fortunately for his friends. Little Billee 
was both shy and discreet, and very tender of other 
people's feelings ; so he kept all his immature juvenile 
agnosticism to himself. 

To atone for such ungainly strong-mindedness in one 
so young and tender, he was the slave of many little 
traditional observances which have no very solid foun- 
dation in either science or philosophy. For instance, 
he wouldn't walk under a ladder for worlds, nor sit 
down thirteen to dinner, nor have his hair cut on a 
Friday, and was quite upset if he happened to see the 
new moon through glass. And he believed in lucky 
and unlucky numbers, and dearly loved the sights 
and scents and sounds of high -mass in some dim old 
French cathedral, and found them secretly comforting. 

Let us hope that he sometimes laughed at himself, 
if only in his sleeve ! 

And with all his keenness of insight into life he had 
a well-brought-up, middle -class young Englishman's 
belief in the infallible efficacy of gentle birth — for 
gentle he considered his own and Taffy's and the 
Laird's, and that of most of the good people he had 
lived among in England — all people, in short, Avhose 



50 

two parents and four grandparents had received a 
liberal education and belonged to the professional 
class. And with this belief he combined (or thought 
he did) a proper democratic scorn for bloated dukes 
and lords, and even poor inoffensive baronets, and all 
the landed gentry — everybody who was born an inch 
higher up than himself. 

It is a fairly good middle-class social creed, if you 
can only stick to it through life in despite of life's ex- 
perience. It fosters independence and self-respect, 
and not a few stodgy practical virtues as well. At 
all events, it keeps you out of bad company, which is 
to be found both above and below. 

And all this melancholy preoccupation, on Little 
Billee's part, from the momentary gleam and dazzle 
of a pair of over-perfect feet in an over-sesthetic eye, 
too much enamoured of mere form ! 

Reversing the usual process, he had idealized from 
the base upward ! 

Many of us, older and wiser than Little Billee, have 
seen in lovely female shapes the outer garment of 
a lovely female soul. The instinct which guides us 
to do this is, perhaps, a right one, more often than 
not. But more often tlian not, also, lovely female 
shapes are terrible complicators of the difficulties and 
dangers of this earthly life, especially for their owner, 
and more especially if she be a humble daughter of 
the people, poor and ignorant, of a yielding nature, 
too quick to love and trust. This is all so true as to 
be trite — so trite as to be a common platitude! 

A modern teller of tales, most widely (and most 
justly) popular, tells us of heroes and heroines who, 



51 

like Lord Byron's corsair, were linked with one virtue 
and a thousand crimes. And so dexterously does he 
weave his story that the young person may read it 
and learn nothing but good. 

My poor heroine was the converse of these engaging 
criminals : she had all the virtues but one ; but the 
virtue she lacked (the very one of all that plays the 
title-role, and gives its generic name to all the rest of 
that goodly company) was of such a kind that I have 
found it impossible so to tell her history as to make it 
quite fit and proper reading for the ubiquitous young 
person so dear to us all. 

Most deeply to my regret. For I had fondly hoped 
it might one day be said of me that whatever ni}'^ other 
literary shortcomings might be, I at least had never 
penned a line which a pure-minded young British 
mother might not read aloud to her little blue -eyed 
babe as it lies sucking its little bottle in its little 
bassinet. 

Fate has willed it otherwise. 

Would indeed that I could duly express poor Tril- 
by's one shortcoming in some not too familiar medi- 
um — in Latin or Greek, let us say — lest the young 
person (in this ubiquitousness of hers, for which Heav- 
en be praised) should happen to pry into these pages 
when her mother is looking another way. 

Latin and Greek are languages the young person 
should not be taught to understand — seeing that they 
are highly improper languages, deservedly dead — in 
which pagan bards who should have known better 
have sung the filthy loves of their gods and goddesses. 

But at least am I scholar enough to enter one little 




Latin plea on Trilby's 
behalf — the shortest, 
best, and most beauti- 
ful plea I can think of. 
It was once used in ex- 
tenuation and condona- 
tion of the frailties of 
another poor weak 
woman, presumably 
beautiful, and a far 
worse offender than 
Trilby, but who, like 
Trilby, repented of her 
ways, and was most justly forgiven — 






TRILBY S FOllEBKAllS 



' ' Quia multum amavit !" 

"Whether it be an aggravation of her misdeeds or 
an extenuating circumstance, no pressure of want, no 
temptations of greed or vanity, had ever been factors 
in urging Trilby on her downward career after her 
first false step in that direction — the result of igno- 
rance, bad advice (from her mother, of all people in the 



53 

world), and base betrayal. She might have lived in 
guilty splendor had she chosen, but her wants were 
few. She had no vanity, and her tastes were of the 
simplest, and she earned enough to gratify them all, 
and to spare. 

So she followed love for love's sake only, now and 
then, as she would have followed art if she had been 
a man — capriciously, desultorily, more in a frolicsome 
spirit of camaraderie than anything else. Like an 
amateur, in short — a distinguished amateur who is 
too proud to sell his pictures, but willingly gives one 
away now and then to some highly valued and much 
admiring friend. 

Sheer gayety of heart and genial good-fellowship, 
the difficulty of saying nay to earnest pleading. She 
w^as " bonne camarade et bonne fille " before every- 
thing. Though her heart was not large enough to 
harbor more than one light love at a time (even in 
that Latin quarter of genially capacious hearts), it had 
room for many w^arra friendships; and. she was the 
warmest, most helpful, and most compassionate of 
friends, far more serious and faithful in friendship 
than in love. 

Indeed, she might almost be said to possess a vir- 
ginal heart, so little did she know of love's heart- 
aches and raptures and torments and clingings and 
jealousies. 

With her it was lightly come and lightly go, and 
never come back again ; as one or two, or perhaps 
three, picturesque boheraians of the brush or chisel 
had found, at some cost to their vanity and self-es- 
teem; perhaps even to a deeper feeling — who knows? 



54 

Trilby's father, as she had said, had been a gentle- 
man, the son of a famous Dublin physician and friend 
of George the Fourth's. He had been a fellow of his 
college, and had entered holy orders. He also had all 
the virtues but one ; he was a drunkard, and began to 
drink quite early in life. He soon left the Church, 
and became a classical tutor, and failed through this 
besetting sin of his, and fell into disgrace. 

Then he went to Paris, and picked up a few English 
pupils there, and lost thera, and earned a precarious 
livelihood from hand to mouth, anyhow ; and sank 
from bad to worse. 

And when his worst was about reached, he married 
the famous tartaned and tamoshantered bar -maid 
at the Montagnards Ecossais, in the Rue du Paradis 
Poissonniere (a very fishy paradise indeed); she was 
a most beautiful Highland lassie of low degree, and 
she managed to support him, or helped him to sup- 
port himself, for ten or fifteen years. Trilby was born 
to them, and was dragged up in some way^« la grace 
de D'leu ! 

Patrick O'Ferrall soon taught his wife to drown all 
care and responsibiHty in his own simple way, and 
opportunities for doing so were never lacking to her. 

Then he died, and left a posthumous child — born 
ten months after his death, alas ! and whose birth cost 
its mother her life. 

Then Trilby became a hlancMsseuse de fin, and in 
two or three years came to grief through her trust in 
a friend of her mother's. Then she became a model 
besides, and was able to support her little brother, whom 
she dearly loved. 



55 

At the time this story begins, this small waif and 
stray was " en pension " with le pere Martin, the rag- 
picker, and his wife, the dealer in bric-a-brac and in- 
expensive old masters. They were very good people, 
and had grown fond of the child, who was beautiful 
to look at, and full of pretty tricks and pluck and 
cleverness — a popular favorite in the Rue du Puits 
d'Amour and its humble neighborhood. 

Trilby, for some freak, always chose to speak of him 
as her godson, and as the grandchild of le pere et la 
mere Martin, so that these good people had ahnost 
grown to believe he really belonged to them. 

And ahnost every one else believed that he was the 
child of Trilby (in spite of her youth), and she was so 
fond of him that she didn't mind in the least. 

He might have had a worse home. 

La mere Martin was pious, or pretended to be; le 
pore Martin was the reverse. But they Avere equally 
good for their kind, and, though coarse and igno- 
rant and unscrupulous in many ways (as was natural 
enough), they were gifted in a very full measure with 
the saving graces of love and charity, especially he. 
And if people are to be judged by their works, this 
worthy pair are no doubt both equally well compen- 
sated by now for the trials and struggles of their sor- 
did earthly life. 

So much for Trilby's parentage. 

And as she sat and wept at Madame Doche's imper- 
sonation of la Dame aux Camelias (with her hand in 
Durien's) she vaguely remembered, as in a waking 
dream, now the noble presence of Taffy as he towered 
cool and erect, foil in hand, gallantly waiting for his 



56 



adversary to breathe, now the beautiful sensitive face 
of Little Billee and his deferential courtesy. 

And during the entr'actes her heart Avent out in 
friendship to the jolly Scotch Laird of Cockpen, who 
came out now and then with such terrible French 
oaths and abominable expletives (and in the presence 
of ladies, too !), without the slightest notion of what 
they meant. 

For the Laird had a quick ear, and a craving to be 
colloquial and idiomatic before everything else, and 
made many awkward and embarrassing mistakes. 

It would be with him as though a polite French- 
man should say to a fair daughter of Albion, " D 

my eyes, raees, your tea is getting cold ; let me 

tell that good old of a Jules to bring you another 

cup." 

And so forth, till time and experience taught him 
better. It is perhaps well for him that his first exper- 
iments in conversational French were made in the un- 
conventional circle of the Place St. Anatole des Arts. 




IPart ScconD 

"Dieii ! qu'il fait bon la regaider, 
La gracieuse, bonne et belle ! 
Pour les grands biens qui sent en elle 
Chacuu est prgt de la louer." 

Nobody knew exactly how Svengali lived, and very 
few knew where (or why). He occupied a roomy di- 
lapidated garret, au sixieme, in the Rue Tire-Liard ; 
with a truckle-bed and a piano-forte for furniture, and 
very little else. 

He was poor ; for in spite of his talent he had not 
yet made his mark in Paris. His manners may have 
been accountable for this. He Avould either fawn or 
bally, and could be grossly impertinent. He had a 
kind of cynical humor, which was more offensive than 
amusing, and always laughed at the wrong thing, at 
the wrong time, in the wrong place. And his laughter 
was always derisive and full of malice. And his ego- 
tism and conceit were not to be borne ; and then he 
was both tawdry and dirty in his person ; more greas- 
ily, mattedly unkempt than even a really successful 
pianist has any right to be, even in the best society. 

Pie was not a nice man, and there was no pathos in 
his poverty — a poverty that was not honorable, and 
need not have existed at all ; for he was constantly re- 
ceiving supplies from his own people in Austria — his 
old father and mother, his sisters, his cousins, and his 



58 

aunts, hard-working, frugal folk of whom he was the 
pride and the darling. 

He had but one virtue — his love of his art; or, 
rather, his love of himself as a master of his art— the 
master ; for he despised, or affected to despise, all other 
musicians, living or dead — even those whose work he 
interpreted so divinely, and pitied them for not hear- 
ing Svengali give utterance to their music, which of 
course they could not utter themselves. 

" lis safent tous un peu toucher du biano, mals pas 
grand'chose !" 

He had been the best pianist of his time at the Con- 
servatory in Leipsic ; and, indeed, there was perhaps 
some excuse for this overweening conceit, since he was 
able to lend a quite peculiar individual charm of his 
own to any music he pla3"ed, except the highest and 
best of all, in which he conspicuously failed. 

He had to draw the line just above Chopin, where 
he reached his highest level. It will not do to lend 
your own quite peculiar individual charm to Handel 
and Bach and Beethoven ; and Chopin is not bad as a 
pis-aller. 

He had ardently wished to sing, and had studied 
hard to that end in Germany, in Italy, in France, with 
the forlorn hope of evolving from some inner recess a 
voice to sing with. But nature had been singularly 
harsh to him in this one respect — inexorable. He was 
absolutely without voice, beyond the harsh, hoarse, 
weak raven's croak he used to speak with, and no 
method availed to make one for him. But he grew to 
understand the human voice as perhaps no one has 
understood it— before or since. 



59 



So in his head he went forever singing, singing, sing- 
ing, as probably no human nightingale has ever yet 
been able to sing out loud for the glory and delight of 
his fellow-mortals ; making unheard heavenly melody 
of the cheapest, trivialest tunes — tunes of the cafe 
concert, tunes of the nursery, the shop -parlor, the 
guard-room, the school-room, the pothouse, the slum. 
There was nothing so humble, so base even, but that 
his magic could transform it into the rarest beauty 
without altering a note. This seems impossible, I 
know. But if it didn't, where would the magic come 
in? 

Whatever of heart or conscience — pity, love, tender- 
ness, manliness, courage, reverence, charity — endowed 
him at his birth had been swallowed up by this one 
faculty, and nothing of them was left for the common 
uses of life. He poured them 
all into his little flexible flag- 
eolet. 

Svengali playing Chopin on 
the piano -forte, even (or espe- 
cially) Svengali playing " Ben 
Bolt " on that penny whistle of 
his, was as one of the heav^enly 
host. 

Svengali walking up and 
down the earth seeking whom 
he might cheat, betray, exploit, 

borrow money from, make brutal fun of, bully if he 
dared, cringe to if he must — man, woman, child, or 
dog — was about as bad as they make 'em. 

To earn a few pence when he couldn't borrow them 




' AS BAD AS THEY MAKE 'eM " 



60 

he played accompaniments at cafe concerts, and even 
then he gave offence; for in his contempt for the 
singer he would play too loud, and embroider his ac- 
companiments with brilliant improvisations of his own, 
and lift his hands on high and bring them down with 
a bang in the sentimental parts, and shake his dirty 
mane and shrug his shoulders, and smile and leer at 
the audience, and do all he could to attract their at- 
tention to himself. He also gave a few music lessons 
(not at ladies' schools, let us hope), for which he was 
not well paid, presumably, since he was always with- 
out the sou, always borrowing money, that he never 
paid back, and exhausting the pockets and the pa- 
tience of one acquaintance after another. 

He had but two friends. There was Gecko, who 
lived in a little garret close by in the Impasse des Ra- 
moneurs, and who was second violin in the orchestra 
of the Gymnase, and shared his humble earnings with 
his master, to whom, indeed, he owed his great talent, 
not yet revealed to the world. 

Svengali's other friend and pupil was (or rather had 
been) the mysterious Honorine, of whose conquest he 
was much given to boast, hinting that she was " une 
jeune femme du monde." This was not the case. 
Mademoiselle Honorine Cahen (better known in the 
quartier latin as Mimi la Salope) was a dirty, drabby 
little dolly-mop of a Jewess, a model for the figure — 
a very humble person indeed, socially. 

She was, however, of a very lively disposition, and 
had a charming voice, and a natural gift of singing so 
sweetly that you forgot her accent, which was that of 
the " tout ce qu'il y a de plus canaille." 



61 

She used to sit at Carrel's, and during the pose she 
would sing. When Little Billee first heard her he was 
so fascinated that " it made him sick to think she sat 
for the figure"— an effect, by -the- way, that was al- 
ways produced upon him by all specially attractive 
figure models of the gentler sex, for he had a rever- 
ence for woman. And before everything else, he had 
for the singing woman an absolute worship. He was 
especially thrall to the contralto — the deep low voice 
that breaks and changes in the middle and soars all at 
once into a magnified angelic boy treble. It pierced 
through his ears to his heart, and stirred his very 
vitals. 

He had once heard Madame Alboni, and it had 
been an epoch in his life ; he would have been an 
easy prey to the sirens ! Even beauty paled before 
the lovely female voice singing in the middle of the 
note — the nightingale killed the bird-of-paradise. 

I need hardly say that poor Mimi la Salope had 
not the voice of Madame Alboni, nor the art ; but it 
was a beautiful voice of its little kind, always in the 
very middle of the note, and her artless art had its 
quick seduction. 

She sang little songs of Beranger's — ^" Grand'mere, 
parlez-nous de lui!" or "T'en souviens-tu? disait un 
capitaine — " or " Enfants, c'est moi qui suis Lisette !" 
and such like pretty things, that almost brought the 
tears to Little Billee's easily moistened eyes. 

But soon she would sing little songs that were not 
by Beranger — little songs with slang words Little 
Billee hadn't French enough to understand ; but from 
the kind of laughter with which the points were re- 



62 

ceived by the"rapins" in Carrel's studio he guessed 
these little songs were vile, though the touching little 
voice was as that of the seraphim still ; and he knew 
the pang of disenchantment and vicarious shame. 

Svengali had heard her sing at the Brasserie des 
Porcherons in the Rue du Crapaud-v'olant, and had 
volunteered to teach her ; and she went to see him in 
his garret, and he played to her, and leered and ogled, 
and flashed his bold, black, beady Jew's eyes into hers, 
and she straightway mentally prostrated herself in 
reverence and adoration before this dazzling specimen 
of her race. 

So that her sordid, mercenary little gutter-draggled 
soul was filled with the sight and the sound of him, 
as of a lordh^, godlike, shawm-plajing, cymbal-bang- 
ing hero and prophet of the Lord God of Israel — 
David and Saul in one ! 

And then he set himself to teach her — kindly and 
patiently at first, calling her sweet little pet names — 
his " Rose of Sharon," his " pearl of Pabylon," his 
" cazelle-eyed liddle Cherusalem skylark " — and prom- 
ised her that she should be the queen of the nightin- 
gales. 

But before he could teach her anything he had to 
unteach her all she knew ; her breathing, the produc- 
tion of her voice, its emission — everything was wrong. 
She worked indefatigably to please him, and soon 
succeeded in forgetting all the pretty little sympa- 
thetic tricks of voice and phrasing Mother Nature 
had taught her. 

But though she had an exquisite ear, she had no 
real musical intelligence — no intelligence of any kind 




"a voice he didn't understand" 



64 

except about sous and centimes ; she was as stupid as 
a little downy owl, and her voice was just a light 
native warble, a throstle's pipe, all in the head and 
nose and throat (a voice he didnH understand, for 
once), a thing of mere youth and health and bloom 
and high spirits — like her beauty, such as it was — 
heaute du diahle, heaute damnee. 

She did her very best, and practised all she could 
in this new way, and sang herself hoarse : she scarce- 
ly ate or slept for practising. He grew harsh and irn- 
patient and coldly severe, and of course she loved him 
all the more; and the more she loved him the more 
nervous she got and the worse she sang. Her voice 
cracked ; her ear became demoralized ; her attempts 
to vocalize grew almost as comical as Trill^y's. So 
that he lost his temper completely, and called her ter- 
rible names, and pinched and punched her with his 
big bony hands till she wept worse than J^iobe, and 
borrowed money of her— five-franc pieces, even francs 
and demifrancs — which he never paid her back ; and 
browbeat and bullied and ballyragged her till she 
went quite mad for love of him, and would have 
jumped out of his sixth-floor window to give him a 
moment's pleasure ! 

He did not ask her to do this — it never occurred to 
him, and would have given him no pleasure to speak 
of. But one fine Sabbath morning (a Saturday, of 
course) he took her by the shoulders and chucked 
her, neck and crop, out of his garret, vfith the threat 
that if she ever dared to show her face there again 
he would denounce her to the police — an awful threat 
to the likes of poor Mimi la Salope ! 



65 

"For where did all those five -franc pieces come 
from — hein ? — with which she had tried to pay for all 
the singing-lessons that had been thrown away upon 
her ? Not from merely sitting to painters — Tiein f 

Thus the little gazelle-eyed Jerusalem skylark went 
back to her native streets again — a mere mud -lark 
of the Paris slums — her Avings clipped, her spirit 
quenched and broken, and with no more singing left 
in her than a common or garden sparrow — not so 
much ! 

And so, no more of " la betite Honorine !" 

The morning after this adventure Svengali woke 
up in his garret with a tremendous longing to spend 
a happy day ; for it was a Sunday, and a very fine 
one. 

He made a long arm and reached his waistcoat and 
trousers off the floor, and emptied the contents of 
their pockets on to his tattered blanket ; no silver, no 
gold, only a few sous and two-sou pieces, just enough 
to pay for a meagre premier dejeuner ! 

He had cleared out Gecko the day before, and 
spent the proceeds (ten francs, at least) in one night's 
riotous living — pleasures in which Gecko had had no 
share ; and he could think of no one to borrow money 
from but Little Billee, Taffy, and the Laird, whom he 
had neglected and left untapped for days. 

So he slipped into his clothes, and looked at himself 
in what remained of a little zinc mirror, and found 
that his forehead left little to be desired, but that his 
eyes and temples were decidedly grimy. Wherefore, 
he poured a little water out of a little jug into a little 



66 

basin, and, twisting the corner of his pocket-handker- 
chief round his dirty forefinger, he delicately dipped 
it, and removed the offending stains. His fingers, he 
thought, would do very well for another day or two 
as they were ; he ran them through his matted black 
mane, pushed it behind his ears, and gave it the twist 
he liked (and that was so much disliked by his Eng- 
lish friends). Then he put on his beret and his velvet- 
een cloak, and went forth into the sunny streets, with 
a sense of the fragrance and freedom and pleasant- 
ness of Sunday morning in Paris in the month of May. 

He found Little Billee sitting in a zinc hip-bath, 
busy with soap and sponge ; and was so tickled and 
interested by the sight that he quite forgot for the 
moment what he had come for. 

"Hiramel! Why the devil are you doing that?" 
he asked, in his German-Hebrew-French. 

" Doing lohat f asked Little Billee, in his French 
of Stratford-atte-Bowe. 

" Sitting in water and playing with a cake of soap 
and a sponge !" 

" Why, to try and get myself clean, I suppose !" 

" Ach ! And how the devil did you get yourself 
dirty, then?" 

To this Little Billee found no immediate answer, 
and went on with his ablution after the hissing, splash- 
ing, energetic fashion of Englishmen ; and Svengali 
laughed loud and long at the spectacle of a little 
Englishman trying to get himself clean — "tachant 
de se nettoyer !" 

When such cleanliness had been attained as w^as 
possible under the circumstances, Svengali begged for 



67 



the loan of two hundred francs, and Little Billee gave 
him a five-franc piece. 

Content with this, faute de mieux, the German 
asked him when he would be trying to get himself 
clean again, as he would 
much like to come and see 
him do it. 

" Demang raatfcang, a votre 
sairveece !" said Little Billee, 
with a courteous bow. 

" What I ! Monday too ! ! 
Gott in liimmel ! you try to 
get yourself clean every day V 

And he laughed himself 
out of the room, out of the 
house, out of the Place de 
rOdeon — all the way to the 
Rue de Seine, where dwelt 
the " Man of Blood," whom 
he meant to propitiate with 
the story of that original, 
Little Billee, trying to get 
himself clean — that he might 
borrow another five -franc 
piece, or perhaps two. 

As the reader will no doubt anticipate, he found 
Taffy in his bath too, and fell to laughing with such 
convulsive laughter, such twistings, screwings, and 
doublings of himself up, such pointings of his dirty 
forefinger at the huge naked Briton, that Taffy was 
offended, and all but lost his temper. 

" What the devil are you cackling at, sacred head 




AND SO, NO MORE.' 



68 

of pig that you are ? Do you want to be pitched out 
of that window into the Kue de Seine? You filthy 
black Hebrew sweep ! Just you wait a bit ; Pll wash 
your head for you !" 

And Taffy jumped out of his bath, such a towering 
figure of righteous Herculean wrath that Svengali was 
appalled, and fled. 

" Donnervvetter !" he exclaimed, as he tumbled down 
the narrow staircase of the Hotel de Seine ; " what for 
a thick head ! what for a pigdog ! what for a rotten, 
brutal, verfluchter kerl of an Englander !" 

Then he paused for thought. 

" l^ow will I go to that Scottish Englander, in the 
Place St. Anatole des Arts, for that other five-franc 
piece. But first will I wait a little while till he has 
perhaps finished trying to get himself clean." 

So he breakfasted at the cremerie Souchet, in the 
Rue Clopin-Clopant, and, feeling quite safe again, he 
laughed and laughed till his very sides were sore. 

Two Englanders in one day — as naked as your 
hand ! — a big one and a little one, trying to get them- 
selves clean ! 

He rather flattered himself he'd scored off those 
two Englanders. 

After all, he was right perhaps, from his point of 
view : you can get as dirty in a week as in a lifetime, 
so what's the use of taking such a lot of trouble ? Be- 
sides, so long as you are clean enough to suit your 
kind, to be any cleaner would be priggish and pedan- 
tic, and get you disliked. 

Just as Svengali was about to knock at the Laird's 
door, Trilby came down -stairs from Durien's, very 



t)9 

unlike herself. Her eyes were red with weeping, and 
there were great black rings round them ; she was 
pale under her freckles. 

" Fous afez du chacrin, matemoiselle ?" asked he. 

She told him that she had neuralgia in her e^'es, a 
thing she was subject to ; that the pain was madden- 
ing, and generally lasted twenty -four hours. 

" Perhaps I can cure you ; come in here with me." 

The Laird's ablutions (if he had indulged in any 
that morning) were evidently over for the day. He 
was breakfasting on a roll and butter, and coffee of 
his own brewing. He was deeply distressed at the 
sight of poor Trilby's sufferings, and offered whiskey 
and coffee and gingernuts, which she would not touch. 

Svengali told her to sit down on the divan, and sat 
opposite to her, and bade her look him well in the 
white of the eyes. 

" Recartez-moi pien tans le plane tes yeux." 

Then he made Httle passes and counterpasses on her 
forehead and temples and down her cheek and neck. 
Soon her eyes closed and her face grew placid. After 
a while, a quarter of an hour perhaps, he asked her if 
she suffered still. 

" Oh ! presqiie plus du tout, monsieur — c'est le ciel." 

In a few minutes more he asked the Laird if he 
knew German. 

" Just enough to understand," said the Laird (who 
had spent a year in Diisseldorf), and Svengali said to 
him in German : " See, she sleeps not, but she shall 
not open her eyes. Ask her." 

" Are you asleep, Miss Trilby ?" asked the Laird. 

" No." 




"Then open 
your eyes and 
look at me." 

She strained to 
open her eyes, 
but could not, 
and said so. 

Then Svengali 
said, again in 
German, " She 
shall not open 
her mouth. Ask 
her." 
" Why couldn't you open your eyes, Miss Trilby ?" 
She strained to open her mouth and speak, but in vain. 
" She shall not rise from the divan. Ask her." 
But Trilby was spellbound, and could not move. 



'"two englanders in one day'" 



71 

" I will now set her free," said Svengali. 

And, lo ! she got up and waved her arms, and cried, 
" Vive la Prusse ! me v'la guerie !" and in her grati- 
tude she kissed Svengali's hand ; and he leered, and 
showed his big brown teeth and the yellow whites at 
the top of his big black eyes, and drew his breath wuth 
a hiss. 

" N^ow I'll go to Durien's and sit. How can I thank 
you, monsieur ? You have taken all my pain away." 

" Yes, matemoiselle. I have got it myself ; it is in 
my elbows. But I love it, because it comes from you. 
Every time you have pain you shall come to me, 12 
Kue Tire-Liard, au sixieme au-dessus de I'entresol, and 
I will cure you and take your pain myself — " 

" Oh, you are too good !" and in her high spirits she 
turned round on her heel and uttered her portentous 
war-cry, " Milk below !" The very rafters rang with 
it, and the piano gave out a solemn response. 

" What is that you say, matemoiselle ?" 

" Oh ! it's what the milkmen say in England." 

"It is a w^onderful cry, matemoiselle — wunder- 
schon ! It comes straight through the heart ; it has 
its roots in the stomach, and blossoms into music 
on the lips like the voice of Madame Alboni— voce 
sulle labbre 1 It is good production — c'est un cri du 
coeur !" 

Trilby blushed with pride and pleasure. 

" Yes, matemoiselle ! I only know one person in 
the whole world who can produce the voice so well as 
you ! I give you my word of honor." 

" Who is it, monsieur — yourself ?" 

" Ach, no, matemoiselle ; I have not that privilege. 



72 

I have unfortunately no voice to produce, ... It is 
a waiter at the Cafe de la Rotonde, in the Palais 
Royal ; when you call for coffee, he says ' Bourn !' in 
basso profondo. Tiefstimme — F. moll below the line 
— it is phenomenal ! It is like a cannon — a cannon 
also has very good production, matemoiselle. They 
pay him for it a thousand francs a year, because he 
brings many customers to the Cafe de la Eotonde^ 
where the coffee isn't very good. When he dies they 
will search all France for another, and then all Ger- 
many, where the good big waiters come from — and 
the cannons — but they will not find bim, and the 
Cafe de ia Rotonde will be bankrupt — unless you will 
consent to take his place. Will you permit that I 
shall look into your mouth, matemoiselle ?" 

She opened her mouth wide, and he looked into it. 

" Himmel ! the roof of your mouth is like the dome 
of the Pantheon ; there is room in it for ' toutes les 
gloires de la France,' and a little to spare ! The en- 
trance to your throat is like the middle porch of St. 
Sulpice when the doors are open for the faithful on All- 
Saints' day ; and not one tooth is missing — thirty-two 
British teeth as white as milk and as big as knuckle- 
bones ! and your little tongue is scooped out like the 
leaf of a pink peony, and the bridge of your nose is 
like the belly of a Stradivarius — what a sounding- 
board ! and inside your beautiful big chest the lungs 
are made of leather ! and your breath, it embalms — 
like the breath of a beautiful white heifer fed on the 
buttercups and daisies of the Vaterland ! and you 
have a quick, soft, susceptible heart, a heart of gold, 
matemoiselle — all that sees itself in your face ! 




"'himmel! the roof of tour mouth'" 



74 



" ' Votre copur est un luth suspendu ! 

Aussitot qu'on le touche, il lesonne. . . .* 

What a pity you have not also the musical organiza- 
tion !" 

" Oh, but I have, monsieur ; you heard me sing 
' Ben Bolt,' didn't you ? What makes you say that?" 

Svengali was confused for a moment. Then he said : 
" When I play the ' Rosemonde ' of Schubert, mate- 
moiselle, you look another way and smoke a cigarette. 
. . . You look at the big Taffy, at the Little Billee, 
at the pictures on the walls, or out of window, at the 
sky, the chimney-pots of Notre Dame de Paris ; you 
do not look at Svengali ! — Svengali, who looks at you 
with all his eyes, and plays you the ' Rosemonde ' of 
Schubert !" 

" Oh, maie, aie !" exclaimed Trilby ; " you do use 
lovely language !" 

"But never mind, matemoiselle ; when your pain 
arrives, then shall you come once more to Svengali, 
and he shall take it away from you, and keep it him- 
self for a soufenir of you "when you are gone. And 
when you have it no more, he shall play you the 
' Rosemonde ' of Schubert, all alone for you ; and 
then, 'Messieurs les etutiants, montez a la chaumicre!' 
. . . because it is gayer ! And you shall see noth- 
ing, hear nothing, think of nothing hut Smngali, Sven- 
gali, Svengali P 

Here he felt his peroration to be so happy and 
effective that he thought it well to go at once and 
make a good exit. So he bent over Trilby's shapely 
freckled hand and kissed it, and bowed himself out 



75 

of the room, without even borrowing his five -franc 
piece. 

" He's a rum 'un, ain't he ?" said Trilby. " He re- 
minds me of a big hungry spider, and makes me feel 
like a fly ! But he's cured my pain ! he's cured my 
pain! Ah! you don't know what my pain is when it 
comes !" 

"I wouldn't have much to do with him, all the 
same !" said the Laird. " I'd sooner have any pain 
tlian have it cured in that unnatural way, and by such 
a man as that ! He's a bad fellow, Svengali — I'm sure 
of it ! He mesmerized you ; that's what it is — mes- 
merism ! I've often heard of it, but never seen it done 
before. They get you into their power, and just make 
you do any blessed thing they please — lie, murder, 
steal — anything! and kill yourself into the bargain 
when they've done with you! It's just too terrible 
to think of !" 

So spake the Laird, earnestly, solemnly, surprised 
out of his usual self, and most painfully impressed — 
and his own impressiveness grew upon him and im- 
pressed him still more. He loomed quite prophetic. 

Cold shivers went down Trilby's back as she lis- 
tened. She had a singularly impressionable nature, 
as was shown by her quick and ready susceptibility 
to Svengali's hypnotic influence. And all that day, 
as she posed for Durien (to whom she did not men- 
tion her adventure), she was haunted by the memory 
of Svengali's big eyes and the touch of his soft, dirty 
finger-tips on her face; and her fear and her repul- 
sion grew together. 

And "• Svengali, Svengali, Svengali !" went ringing 



76 

in her head and ears till it became an obsession, a 
dirge, a knell, an unendurable burden, almost as hard 
to bear as the pain in her eyes. 

'■^Svengali^ Svengali^ SvengaliP'' 

At last she asked Durien if he knew him. 

" Parbleu ! Si je connais Svengali !" 

" Quest-ce que t'en penses V 

" Quand il sera mort, ya fera une fameuse crapule 
de moins !" 

"CHEZ CAEREL." 

Carrel's atelier (or painting-school) was in the Rue 
Notre Dame des Potirons St. Michel, at the end of 
a large court-3'ard, where there were many large dirty 
windows facing north, and each window let the light 
of heaven into a large dirty studio. 

The largest of these studios, and the dirtiest, was 
Carrel's, where some thirty or fort)' art students drew 
and painted from the nude model every day but Sun- 
day from eight till twelve, and for two hours in tlie 
afternoon, except on Saturday's, when the afternoon 
was devoted to much-needed Augean sweepings and 
cleanings. 

One week the model was male, the next female, and 
so on, alternating throughout the year. 

A stove, a model -throne, stools, boxes, some fifty 
strongly built low chairs with backs, a couple of 
score easels and many drawing-boards, completed the 
mobilier. 

The bare walls were adorned with endless carica- 
tures — des charges— in charcoal and white chalk ; and 




" ' 5A FERA UNE FAMEUSE CRAPULE 
DE MOINS ' " 



also the scrapings of 
many palettes — a poly- 
chromous decoration not 
unpleasing. 

For the freedom of 
the studio and the use 

of the model each student paid ten francs a month to 
the massier, or senior student, the responsible bell- 
wether of the flock; besides this, it was expected of 
you, on your entrance or initiation, that you should 
pay for your footing — your hhnmenue — some thirty, 
forty, or fifty francs, to be spent on cakes and rum 
punch all round. 

Every Friday Monsieur Carrel, a great artist, and 
also a stately, well-dressed, and most courteous gentle- 
man (duly decorated with the red rosette of the Legion 
of Honor), came for two or three hours and went the 



78 

round, spending a few minutes at each drawing-board 
or easel — ten or even twelve when the pupil was an 
industrious and promising one. 

He did this for love, not money, and deserved all 
the reverence with which he inspired this somewhat 
irreverent and most unruly company, which Avas made 
up of all sorts. 

Graybeards who had been drawing and painting 
there for thirty years and more, and remembered 
other masters than Carrel, and who could draw and 
paint a torso almost as well as Titian or Velasquez — 
almost, but not quite — and who could never do any- 
thing else, and were fixtures at Carrel's for life. 

Younger men who in a year or two, or three or five, 
or ten or twenty, were bound to make their mark, and 
perhaps follow in the footsteps of the master ; others 
as conspicuously singled out for failure and future 
mischance — for the hospital, the garret, the river, the 
Morgue, or, worse, the traveller's bag, the road, or 
even the paternal counter. 

Irresponsible boys, mere rapins, all laugh and chaff 
and mischief — "blague et bagout Parisien"; little 
lords of misrule — wits, butts, bullies ; the idle and in- 
dustrious apprentice, the good and the bad, the clean 
and the dirty (especially the latter) — all more or less 
animated by a certain esprit de corps, and working 
very happily and genially together, on the whole, and 
always willing to help each other with sincere artistic 
counsel if it were asked for seriously, though it was 
not always couched in terms very flattering to one's 
self-love. 

Before Little Billee became one of this band of 



79 

brothers he had been working for three or four years 
in a London art school, drawing and painting from 
the life ; he had also worked from the antique in the 
British Museum — so that he was no novice. 

As he made his debut at Carrel's one Monday morn- 
ing he felt somewhat shy and ill at ease. He had 
studied French most earnestly at home in England, 
and could read it pretty well, and even write it and 
speak it after a fashion ; but he spoke it with much 
difficulty, and found studio French a different lan- 
guage altogether from the formal and polite language 
he had been at such pains to learn. Ollendorff does 
not cater for the quartier latin. Acting on Taffy's 
advice — for Taffy had worked under Carrel — Little 
Billee handed sixty francs to the massier for his hien- 
venue — a lordly sum — and this liberality made a most 
favorable impression, and went far to destroy any 
little prejudice that might have been caused by the 
daintiness of his dress, the cleanliness of his person, 
and the politeness of his manners. A place was as- 
signed to him, and an easel and a board ; for he 
elected to stand at his work and begin with a chalk 
drawing. The model (a male) was posed, and work 
began in silence. Monday morning is always rather 
sulky everywhere (except perhaps in judee). During 
the ten minutes' rest three or four students came and 
looked at Little Billee's beginnings, and saw at a 
glance that he thoroughly well knew what he was 
about, and respected him for it. 

Nature had given him a singularly light hand — or 
rather two, for he was ambidextrous, and could use 
both with equal skill ; and a few months' practice at 



80 

a London life school bad quite cured him of that pur- 
poseless indecision of touch which often characterizes 
the prentice hand for years of apprenticeship, and re- 
mains with the amateur for life. The lightest and 
most careless of his pencil strokes had a precision that 
was inimitable, and a charm that specially belonged 
to him, and was easy to recognize at a glance. His 
touch on either canvas or paper was like Svengali's 
on the key-board — unique. 

As the morning ripened httle attempts at conversa- 
tion were made — little breakings of the ice of silence. 
It was Lambert, a youth with a singularly facetious 
face, who first Avoke the stillness witli the following un- 
called-for remarks in English very badly pronounced : 

" Av you seen my fahzere's ole shoes ?" 

" I av not seen your fahzere's ole shoes." 

Then, after a pause : 

" Av you seen my fahzere's ole 'at?" 

" I av not seen your fahzere's old 'at !" 

Presently another said, " Je trouve qu'il a une jolie 
tete, I'Anglais." 

But I will put it all into English: 

•'I find that he has a pretty head — the Englishman ! 
What say you, BarizeU" 

"Yes; but why has he got eyes like brandy-balls, 
two a penny ?" 

" Because he's an Englishman !" 

" Yes ; but why has he got a mouth like a guinea- 
pig, with two big teeth in front like the double blank 
at dominos ?" 

" Because he's an Englishman !" 

" Yes ; but why has he got a back without any 



bend in it, as if he'd swallowed the Colonne Yendome 
as far up as the battle of Austerlitz ?" 

" Because he's an Englishman !" 

And so on, till all the supposed characteristics of 
Little Billee's outer man were exhausted. Then : 

" Papelard !" 

"What?" 

"/should like to know if the Englishman says his 
prayers before going to bed." 

" Ask him." 

"Ask him yourself!" 

"/should like to know if the Englishman has sis- 
ters ; and if so, how old and how many and what 
sex." 

" Ask him." 

" Ask him yourself !" 

" / should like to know the detailed and circum- 
stantial history of the Englishman's first love, and 
how he lost his innocence !" 

" Ask him," etc., etc., etc. 

Little Billee, conscious that he w^as the object of 
conversation, grew somewhat nervous. Soon he was 
addressed directly. 

" Dites done, 1' Anglais ?" 

" Kwaw ?" said Little Billee. 

" Avez-vous une soeur ?" 

"Wee." 

"Est-ce qu'elle vous ressemble?" 

" Nong." 

" C'est bien dommage ! Est-ce qu'elle dit ses prieres, 
le soir, en se couchant ?" 

A fierce look came into Little Billee's eyes and a 



83 

redness to his cheeks, and this particular form of 
overture to friendship was abandoned. 

Presently Lambert said, " Si nous mettions 1' Anglais 
a I'echelle ?" 

Little Billee, who had been warned, knew what this 
ordeal meant. 

They tied you to a ladder, and carried you in pro- 
cession up and down the court-yard, and if you were 
nasty about it they put you under the pump. 

During the next rest it was explained to him that 
he must submit to this indignity, and the ladder (which 
was used for reaching the high shelves round the stu- 
dio) was got ready. 

Little Billee smiled a singularly winning smile, and 
suffered himself to be bound witli such good -humor 
that they voted it wasn't amusing, and unbound him, 
and he escaped the ordeal by ladder. 

Taffy had also escaped, but in another way. When 
they tried to seize him he took up the first rapin that 
came to hand, and, using him as a kind of club, he 
swung him about so freely and knocked down so many 
students and easels and drawing-boards with him, and 
made such a terrific rumpus, that the whole studio had 
to cry for " pax !" Then he performed feats of strength 
of such a surprising kind that the memory of him re- 
mained in Carrel's studio for years, and he became a 
legend, a tradition, a myth ! It is now said (in what 
still remains of the quartier latin) that he was seven 
feet high, and used to juggle with the massier and 
model as with a pair of billiard balls, using only his 
left hand ! 

To return to Little Billee. When it struck twelve, 



84 

the cakes and rum punch arrived — a very goodly sight 
that put every one in a good temper. 

The cakes were of three kinds — Babas, Madeleines, 
and Savarins — three sous apiece, fourpence half-pennv 
the set of three. No nicer cakes are made in France, 
and they are as good in the quartier latin as anywhere 
else ; no nicer cakes are made in the whole world, that 
I know of. You must begin with the Madeleine, which 
is rich and rather heavy ; then the Baba ; and finish 
up with the Savarin, w4iich is shaped like a ring, very 
light, and flavored with rum. And then you must 
really leave oflf. 

The rum punch was tepid, very sweet, and not a bit 
too strong. 

They dragged the model-throne into the middle, and 
a chair was put on for Little Billee, who dispensed his 
hospitality in a very polite and attractive manner, 
helping the massier first, and then the other gray- 
beards in the order of their grayness, and so on down 
to the model. 

Presently, just as he was about to help himself, he 
was asked to sing them an English song. After a lit- 
tle pressing he sang them a song about a gay cavalier 
who went to serenade his mistress (and a ladder of 
ropes, and a pair of masculine gloves that didn't be- 
long to the gay cavalier, but which he found in his 
lady's bower) — a poor sort of song, but it was the 
nearest approach to a comic song he knew. There are 
four verses to it, and each verse is rather long. It 
does not sound at all funny to a French audience, and 
even with an English one Little Billee was not good 
at comic soncifs. 



86 

He was, however, much applauded at the end of 
each verse. When he had finished, he was aslved if 
he were quite sure there wasn't any more of it, and 
they expressed a deep regret ; and then eacli student, 
straddling on his little thick-set chair as on a liorse, 
and clasping the back of it in both hands, galloped 
round Little Billee's throne quite seriously — the strang- 
est procession he had ever seen. It made him laugh 
till he cried, so that he couldn't eat or drink. 

Then he served more punch and cake all round ; 
and just as he was going to begin himself, Papelard 
said : 

"Say, you others, I find that the Englishman has 
something of truly distinguished in the voice, some- 
thing of sympathetic, of touching — something of ^V 
ne sais quoi /" 

Bouchardy : " Yes, yes — something oijene sais quoi! 
That's the very phrase — n'est-ce pas, vous autres, that 
is a good phrase that Papelard has just invented to 
describe the voice of the Englishman. He is very 
intelligent, Papelard." 

Chorus : " Perfect, perfect ; he has the genius of 
characterization, Papelard. Dites done, I'Anglais ! 
once more that beautiful song — hein ? Nous vous en 
prions tous." 

Little Billee willingly sang it again, wnth even great- 
er applause, and again they galloped, but the other 
way round and faster, so that Little Billee became 
quite hysterical, and laughed till his sides ached. 

Then Dubosc : " I find there is something of very 
capitous and exciting in English music — of very stim- 
ulating. And you, Bouchardy ?" 



87 

Bouchardy : " Oh, me ! It is above all the words 
that 1 admire ; they have something of passionate, 
of romantic — ' ze-ese ghi-aves, zese gla-aves — zey do 
not belong to me.' I don't know what that means, 
bnt I love that sort of — of — oi—je ne sals quoi, in 
short ! Just once more, 1' Anglais ; only once, the fotir 
couplets." 

So he sang it a third time, all four verses, while 
they leisurely ate and drank and smoked and looked 
at each other, nodding solemn commendation of cer- 
tain phrases in the song: "Tres bien !" "Tres bien!" 
" Ah ! voila qui est bien reussi !" " Epatant, ya !" 
" Tres fin !" etc., etc. For, stimulated by success, and 
rising to the occasion, he did his very utmost to sur- 
pass himself in emphasis of gesture and accent and 
histrionic drollery — heedless of the fact that not one 
of his listeners had the slightest notion what his song 
was about. 

It was a sorry performance. 

And it was not till he had sung it four times that 
he discovered the whole thing was an elaborate im- 
promptu farce, of which he was the butt, and that of 
all his royal spread not a crumb or a drop was left for 
himself. 

It was the old fable of the fox and the crow ! 
And to do him justice, he laughed as heartily as 
any one, as if he thoroughly enjoyed the joke — and 
when you take jokes in that way people soon leave 
off poking fun at you. It is almost as good as 
being very big, like Taffy, and having a choleric blue 
eye! 

Such was Little Billee's first experience of Carrel's 



88 

studio, where be spent many happy mornings and 
made many good friends. 

No more popular student had ever woi'ked there 
within the memory oi" the grayest graybeards; none 
more amiable, more genial, more cheerful, self-respect- 
ing, considerate, and polite, and certainly none with 
greater gifts for art. 

Carrel would devote at least fifteen minutes to him, 
and invited him often to his own private studio. And 
often, on the fourth and (ii'th day of the week, a group 
of admiring students would be gathered by his easel 
watching him as he worked. 

"Cost un rude lapin, TAnglais ! au moins il sait son 
orthographe en pcinturc, cc coco-la !" 

Such was the verdict on Little Jjillec at Carrel's 
studio; and I can conceive no loftier praise. 



Young as she was (seventeen or eighteen, or there- 
abouts), and also tender (like Little IJillee), Trilby had 
singularly clear and quick perceptions in all matters 
that concerned her tastes, fancies, or affections, and 
thoroughly knew her own mind, and never lost much 
time in making it up. 

On the occasion of her first visit to the studio in the 
Place St. Anatole des Arts, it took her just five min- 
utes to decide that it was quite the nicest, homeliest, 
genialest, jolliest studio in the whole quartier latin, 
or out of it, and its three inhabitants, individually and 
collectively, were more to her taste than any one else 
she had ever met. 



90 

In the first place, they were English, and she lored 
to hear her mother-tongue and speak it. It awoke all 
manner of tender recollections, sweet reminiscences of 
her childhood, her parents, her old home — such a home 
as it was — or, rather, such homes ; for there had been 
many Sittings from one poor nest to another. The 
O'Ferralls had been as birds on the bough. 

She had loved her parents very dearly ; and, indeed, 
with all their faults, they had many endearing quali- 
ties — the qualities that so often go with those partic- 
ular faults — charm, geniality, kindness, warmth of 
heart, the constant wish to please, the generosity that 
comes before justice, and lends its last sixpence and 
forgets to pay its debts ! 

She knew other English and American artists, and 
had sat to them frequently for the head and hands ; 
but none of these, for general agreeableness of aspect 
or manner, could compare in her mind with the stal- 
wart and magnificent Taffy, the joll}'^ fat Laird of 
Cockpen, the refined, sympathetic, and elegant Little 
Billee ; and she resolved that she would see as much 
of them as she could, that she would make herself at 
home in that particular studio, and necessary to its 
" locataires " ; and, without being the least bit vain or 
self-conscious, she had no doubts whatever of her pow- 
er to please — to make herself both useful and orna- 
mental if it suited her purpose to do so. 

Her first step in this direction was to borrow Pere 
Martin's basket and lantern and pick (he had more 
than one set of these trade properties) for the use of 
Taffy, whom she feared she might have offended by 
the freedom of her comments on his picture. 



91 

Then, as often as she felt it to be discreet, she sound- 
ed her war - cry at the studio door and went in and 
made kind inquiries, and, sitting cross-legged on the 
model-throne, ate her bread and cheese and smoked her 
cigarette and " passed the time of day," as she chose 
to call it; telling them all such news of the quartier 
as had come within her own immediate ken. She 
was always full of little stories of other studios, which, 
to do her justice, were always good-natured, and prob- 
ably true — quite so, as far as she was concerned ; she 
w^as the most literal person alive ; and she told all 
these " ragots, cancans, et potins d'atelier " in a quaint 
and amusing manner. The slightest look of gravity 
or boredom on one of those three faces, and she made 
herself scarce at once. 

She soon found opportunities for usefulness also. 
If a costume were wanted, for instance, she knew 
where to borrow it, or hire it or buy it cheaper 
than any one anywhere else. She procured stuffs for 
them at cost price, as it seemed, and made them into 
draperies and female garments of any kind that was 
wanted, and sat in them for the toreador's sweetheart 
(she made the mantilla herself), for Taffy's starving 
dress-maker about to throw herself into the Seine, for 
Little Billee's studies of the beautiful French peasant 
girl in his picture, now so famous, called " The Pitcher 
Goes to the Well." 

Then she darned their socks and mended their 
clothes, and got all their washing done properly and 
cheaply at her friend Madame Boisse's, in the Rue des 
Cloitres Ste. Petronille. 

And then again, when they were hard up and want- 



92 



ed a good round sum of money for some little pleas- 
ure excursion, such as a trip to Fontainebleau or Bar- 
bizon for two or three days, it was she wiio took their 
watches and scarf-pins and things to the Mount of 
Piety in the Street of the Well of Love (where dwelt 




" ma tante," which is 
French for " my uncle " 
in this connection), in 
order to raise the neces- 
sary funds. 

She was, of course, 
most liberally paid for 
all these little services, 
rendered with such pleas- 
ure and good - will — far 

too liberally, she thought. She would have been 

really happier doing them for love. 

Thus in a very short time she became a persona 

gratissima — a sunny and ever welcome vision of health 

and grace and liveliness and unalterable good-humor, 



THE LATIN QUARTER 



93 

always ready to take any trouble to please her beloved 
" Angliches," as they were called by Madame Vinard, 
the handsome shrill-voiced concierge, who was almost 
jealous; for she was devoted to the Angliches too — 
and so was Monsieur Yinard — and so were the little 
Vinards. 

She knew when to talk and when to laugh and when 
to hold her tongue ; and the sight of her sitting cross- 
legged on the model-throne darning the Laird's socks 
or sewing buttons on his shirts or repairing the smoke- 
holes in his trousers was so pleasant that it was paint- 
ed by all three. One of these sketches (in water-color, 
by Little Billee) sold the other day at Christie's for 
a sum so large that I hardly dare to mention it. It 
was done in an afternoon. 

Sometimes on a rainy day, when it Avas decided 
they should dine at home, she would fetch the food 
and cook it, and lay the cloth, and even make the 
salad. She was a better saladist than Taffy, a better 
cook than the Laird, a better caterer than Little Billee. 
And she would be invited to take her share in the ban- 
quet. And on these occasions her tremulous happiness 
was so immense that it would be quite pathetic to see 
— almost painful ; and their three British hearts were 
touched by thoughts of all the loneliness and home- 
lessness, the expatriation, the half -conscious loss of 
caste, that all this eager childish clinging revealed. 

And that is why (no doubt) that with all this fa- 
miliar intimacy there was never any hint of gallantry 
or flirtation in any shape or form whatever — bonne 
camaraderie, voild tout. Had she been Little Billee's 
sister she could not have been treated with more real 



94 

respect. And her deep gratitude for this unwonted 
compliment transcended an^^ passion she had ever felt. 
As the good Lafontaine so prettily says, 

" Ces aniraaux vivaient entre eux comme cousins ; 
Cette union si douce, et presque fraternelle, 
Edifiait tous les voisius !" 

And then their talk ! It was to her as the talk of 
the gods in Olympus, save that it was easier to under- 
stand, and she could alwaj's understand it. For she 
was a very intelligent person, in spite of her wofully 
neglected education, and most ambitious to learn — a 
new ambition for her. 

So they lent her books — English books: Dickens, 
Thackeray, AValter Scott — which she devoured in the 
silence of the night, the solitude of her little attic in 
the Rue des Pousse-Cailloux, and new worlds were re- 
vealed to her. She grew more English every day; 
and that was a good thing. 

Trilby speaking English and Trilb}^ speaking French 
were two ditferent beings. Trilbj^'s English was 
more or less that of her father, a highly -educated 
man ; her mother, who was a Scotch woman, although 
an uneducated one, had none of the ungainliness that 
mars the speech of so many English women in that 
humble rank — no droppings of the h, no broadening 
of the o's and a's. 

Trilby's French was that of the quartier latin — 
droll, slangy, piquant, quaint, picturesque — quite the 
reverse of ungainly, but in which there was scarcely a 
turn, of phrase that would not stamp the speaker as 



96 

being hopelessly, emphatically " no lady !" Though 
it was funny without being vulgar, it was perhaps a 
little too funny ! 

And she handled her knife and fork in the dainty 
English way, as no doubt her father had done — and 
his ; and, indeed, when alone with them she was so 
absolutel}'^ "like a lady" that it seemed quite odd 
(though very seductive) to see her in a grisette's cap 
and dress and apron. So much for her English train- 
ing. 

But enter a Frenchman or two, and a transforma- 
tion effected itself immediatel}^— a new incarnation of 
Trilbyness — so droll and amusing that it was difficult 
to decide which of her two incarnations was the most 
attractive. 

It must be admitted that she had her faults— like 
Little Billee. 

For instance, she would be miserablv jealous of any 
other woman Avho came to tlie studio, to sit or scrub 
or sweep or do anything else, even of the dirty tipsy 
old hag who sat for Taffy's " found drowned" — "as if 
she couldn't have sat for it herself !" 

And then she would be cross and sulky, but not for 
long— an injured martyr, soon ready to forgive and 
be forgiven. 

She would give up any sitting to come and sit to 
her three English friends. Even Durien had serious 
cause for complaint. 

Then her affection was exacting: she always wanted 
to be told one was fond of her, and she dearly loved 
her own way, even in the sewing on of buttons and 
the darning of socks, which was innocent enough. 



97 

But when it came to the cutting and fashioning of 
garments for a toreador's bride, it was a nuisance not 
to be borne ! 

"What could she know of toreadors' brides and 
their wedding-dresses?" the Laird would indignantly 
ask — as if he were a toreador himself ; and this was 
the aggravating side of her irrepressible Trilbyness. 

In the caressing, demonstrative tenderness of her 
friendship she "made the soft eyes" at all three in- 
discriminately. But sometimes Little Billee would 
look up from his work as she was sitting to Taffy or 
the Laird, and find her gray eyes fixed on him with 
an all-enfolding gaze, so piercingly, penetratingly, un- 
utterably sweet and kind and tender, such a brooding, 
dovelike look of soft and w^arm solicitude, that he 
would feel a flutter at his heart, and his hand would 
shake so that he could not paint ; and in a waking 
dream he would remember that his mother had often 
looked at him like that when he was a small boy, and 
she a beautiful young woman untouched by care or 
sorrow ; and the tear that always lay in readiness so 
close to the corner of Little Billee's eye w^ould find 
it very difficult to keep itself in its proper place — 
unshed. 

And at such moments the thought that Trilby sat 
for the figure would go through him like a knife. 

She did not sit promiscuously to anybody who 
asked, it is true. But she still sat to Durien ; to the 
great Gerome ; to M. Carrel, who scarcely used any 
other model. 

It was poor Trilby'^ sad distinction that she sur- 
passed all other models as Calypso surpassed her 



98 

nymphs ; and whether by long habit, or through some 
obtuseness in her nature, or lack of imagination, she 
was equally unconscious of self with her clothes on or 
without ! Truly, she could be naked and unashamed 

— in this respect an 
absolute savage. 

She would have 

idden through Cov- 

', like Lad}' 




" THE SOFT EYES " 



Godiva — but without giving it a thought beyond won- 
dering why the streets were empty and the shops 
closed and the blinds pulled down — would even have 
looked up to Peeping Tom's shutter with a friendly 
nod, had she known he was behind it ! 
In fact, she was absolutely without that kind of 



99 

shame, as she was without any kind of fear. But she 
was destined soon to know both fear and shame. 

And here it would not be amiss for me to state a 
fact well known to all painters and sculptors who 
have used the nude model (except a few senile pre- 
tenders, whose purity, not being of the right sort, has 
gone rank from too much watching), namely, that 
nothing is so chaste as nudity. Venus herself, as she 
drops her garments and steps on to the model-throne, 
leaves behind her on the floor every weapon in her 
armory by which she can pierce to the grosser pas- 
sions of man. The more perfect her unveiled beauty, 
the more keenly it appeals to his higher instincts. 
And where her beauty fails (as it almost always does 
somewhere in the Venuses who sit for hire), the fail- 
ure is so lamentably conspicuous in the studio light — 
the fierce light that beats on this particular throne — 
that Don Juan himself, who has not got to paint, were 
fain to hide his eyes in sorrow and disenchantment, 
and fly to other climes. 

All beauty is sexless in the eyes of the artist at his 
work — the beauty of man, the beauty of woman, the 
heavenly beauty of the child, which is the sweetest 
and best of all. 

Indeed it is woman, lovely woman, whose beauty 
falls the shortest, for sheer lack of proper physical 
training. 

As for Trilby, G , to whom she sat for his 

Phryne, once told me that the sight of her thus was 
a thing to melt Sir Galahad, and sober Silenus, and 
chasten Jove himself — a thing to Quixotize a modern 
French masher ! I can well believe him. For myself, 



100 

I only speak of Trilby as I have seen her — clothed 
and in her right mind. She never sat to rae for any 
Phryne, never bared herself to rae, nor did I ever 
dream of asking her. I would as soon have asked 
the Queen of Spain to let me paint her legs ! But 
I have worked from many female models in many 
countries, some of them tlie best of their kind. I 
have also, like Sv^engali, seen Taffy "trying to get 
himself clean,'' either at home or in the swimming- 
baths of the Seine ; and never a sitting woman 
among them all who could match for grace or finish 
or splendor of outward form that mighty Yorkshire- 
man sitting in his tub, or sunning himself, like Ilyssus, 
at the Bains Henri Quatre, or taking his running head- 
er a la hussarde, off the spring-board at the Bains De- 
ligny, with a group of wondering Frenchmen gath- 
ered round. 

Up he shot himself into mid-air with a sounding 
double downward kick, parabolically ; then, turning 
a splendid semi-demi-summersault against the sk}--, 
down he came headlong, his body straight and stiff as 
an arrow, and made his clean hole in the water with- 
out splash or sound, to reappear a hundred yards far- 
ther on ! 

"Sac a papier! quel gaillard que cet Anglais, hein?" 

" A-t-on jamais vu un torse pareil !" 

" Et les bras, done !" 

" Et les jambes, nom d'un tonnerre !" 

" Matin ! J'aimerais mieux etre en colere contre lui 
qu'il ne soit en colere contre moi !" etc., etc., etc. 

Omne ignotum pro magnifico ! 



101 



If our climate were such that we could go about 
without any clothes on, we probably should ; in which 
case, although we should still murder and lie and steal 
and bear false witness against our neighbor, and break 
the Sabbath day and take the Lord's name in vain, 
much deplorable wickedness of another kind would 
cease to exist for sheer lack of mystery ; and Chris- 
tianity Avould be relieved of its hardest task in this sin- 
ful world, and Venus Aphrodite {alias Aselgeia) would 




have to go a-begging along with the tailors and dress- 
makers and boot-makers, and perhaps our bodies and 
limbs Avould be as those of the Theseus and Venus of 
Milo ; who was no Venus, except in good looks ! 



102 

At all events, there would be no cunning, cruel de- 
ceptions, no artful taking in of artless inexperience, 
no unduly hurried waking -up from Love's young 
dream, no handing down to posterity of hidden ugli- 
nesses and weaknesses, and worse ! 

And also many a flower, now born to blush unseen, 
would be reclaimed from its desert, and suffered to 
hold its own, and flaunt away with the best in the 
inner garden of roses ! 

And here let me humbly apologize to the casual 
reader for the length and possible irrelevancy of this 
digression, and for its subject. To those who may 
find matter for sincere disapprobation or even grave 
offence in a thing that has always seemed to me so 
simple, so commonplace, as to be hardly worth talk- 
ing or writing about, I can only plead a sincerity 
equal to theirs, and as deep a love and reverence for 
the gracious, goodly shape that God is said to have 
made after His own image for inscrutable purposes 
of His own. 

Nor, indeed, am I pleading for such a subversive 
and revolutionary measure as the wholesale abolition 
of clothes, being tlie chilliest of mortals, and quite un- 
like Mr. Theseus or Mr. Ilyssus either. 

Sometimes Trilby would bring her little brother to 
the studio in the Place St. Anatole des Arts, in his 
" beaux habits de Pdques," his hair well curled and 
pomatumed, his hands and face Avell washed. 

He was a very engaging little mortal. The Laird 
would fill his pockets full of Scotch goodies, and paint 
him as a little Spaniard in "Le Fils du Toreador," a 



103 

sweet little Spaniard with blue eyes, and curly locks 
as light as tow, and a complexion of milk and roses, 
in singular and piquant contrast to his swarthy pro- 
genitor. 

Taffy would use him as an Indian club or a dumb- 
bell, to the child's infinite delight, and swing him on 
the trapeze, and teach him " la boxe." 

And the sweetness and fun of his shrill, happy, in- 
fantile laugliter (which was like an echo of Trilby's, 
onl}'^ an octave higher) so moved and touched and 
tickled one tliat Taffy had to look quite fierce, so he 
might hide the strange delight of tenderness that 
somehow filled his manly bosom at the mere sound 
of it (lest Little Billee and the Laird should think 
him goody-goody) ; and the fiercer Taffy looked, the 
less this small mite was afraid of him. 

Little Billee made a beautiful water-color sketch of 
him, just as he was, and gave it to Trilby, who gave 
it to le pere Martin, who gave it to his wife with 
strict injunctions not to sell it as an old master. 
Alas ! it is an old master now, and Heaven only 
knows who has got it ! 

Those were happy days for Trilby's little brother, 
happy days for Trilby, who was immensely fond of 
him, and very proud. And the happiest day of all 
was when Trois Angliches took Trilby and Jean- 
not (for so the mite was called) to spend the Sunday 
in the woods at Meudon, and breakfast and dine at 
the garde champetre's. Swings, peep-shows, donkey- 
rides ; shooting at a mark with cross-bows and little 
pellets of clay, and smashing little plaster figures and 
winning macaroons ; losing one's self in the beautiful 



104 

forest ; catching newts and tadpoles and young frogs ; 
making music on mirlitons. Trilby singing "Ben 
Bolt " into a mirliton was a thing to be remembered, 
whether one would or no ! 

Trilby on this occasion came out in a new charac- 
ter, en demoiselle^ with a little black bonnet, and a 
gray jacket of her own making. 

To look at (but for her loose, square-toed, heelless 
silk boots laced up the inner side), she might have 
been the daughter of an English dean — until she un- 
dertook to teach the Laird some favorite cancan steps. 
And then the Laird himself, it must be admitted, no 
longer looked like the son of a worthy, God-fearing, 
Sabbath-keeping Scotch solicitor. 

Tills was after dinner, in the garden, at "la loge 
du garde champctre." Taffy and Jeannot and Little 
Billee made the necessary music on their mirlitons, 
and the dancing soon became general, with plenty 
also to look on, for the garde had many customers 
who dined there on summer Sundays. 

It is no exaggeration to say that Trilby was far 
and away the belle of that particular ball, and there 
have been worse balls in much finer company, and 
far plainer women ! 

Trilby lightly dancing the cancan (there are can- 
cans and cancans) was a singularly gainly and seduc- 
tive person — ct vera incessu patuit deal Llere, again, 
she was funny without being vulgar. And for mere 
grace (even in the cancan), she was the forerunner of 
Miss Kate Yaughan ; and, for sheer fun, the precursor 
of Miss Nelly Farren ! 

And the Laird, trying to dance after her ("dongsong 



105 



le konkong," as he called it), was too funny for words ; 
and if genuine popular success is a true test of humor, 
no greater humorist ever danced ix^pas seul. 




' voiLA l'espayce ue hom ker jer swee !' " 



What Englishmen could do in France during the 
fifties, and yet manage to preserve their self-respect, 
and even the respect of their respectable French 
friends ! 

" Voila l'espayce de hom ker jer swee !" said the 
Laird, every time he bowed in acknowledgment of the 



106 

applause that greeted his performance of various solo 
steps of his own — Scotch reels and sword-dances that 
come in admirably. . . . 

Then, one fine day, the Laird fell ill, and the doctor 
had to be sent for, and he ordered a nurse. But Trilby 
would hear of no nurses, not even a Sister of Charity ! 
She did all the nursing herself, and never slept a wink 
for three successive days and nights. 

On the third day the Laird was out of all danger, 
the delirium was past, and the doctor found poor 
Trilby fast asleep by the bedside. 

Madame Vinard, at the bedroom door, put her finger 
to her lips, and whispered : " Quel bonheur ! il est 
sauve, M. le Docteur ; ecoutez ! il dit ses prieres en 
Anglais, ce brave garcon !" 

The good old doctor, who didn't understand a word 
of English, listened, and heard the Laird's voice, weak 
and low, but quite clear, and full of heart-felt fervor, 
intoning, solemnly : 

" 'Green herbs, red peppers, mussels, saffron. 
Soles, onions, garlic, roach, and dace^- 
All Ihese you eat at Terre's Tavern 
In that one dish of bouillabaisse !' " 

" Ah ! mais c'est tres bien de sa part, ce brave jeune 
homme ! rendre graces au ciel comme cela, quand le 
danger est passe! tres bien, tres bien !" 

Sceptic and Voltairian as he was, and not the friend 
of prayer, the good doctor was touched, for he was 
old, and therefore kind and tolerant, and made allow- 
ances. 

And afterwards he said such sweet things to Trilby 



m 

about it all, and about her admirable care of his 
patient, that she positively wept with delight — like 
sweet Alice with hair so brown, whenever Ben Bolt 
gave her a smile. 

All this sounds very goody-goody, but it's true. 

So it will be easily understood ho\v the trois An- 
gliches came in time to feel for Trilb}'^ quite a peculiar 
regard, and looked forward with sorrowful forebod- 
ings to the day when this singular and pleasant little 
quartet would have to be broken up, each of them to 
spread his wings and fly away on his own account, 
and poor Trilby to be left behind all by herself. They 
would even frame little plans whereby she might better 
herself in life, and avoid the many snares and pitfalls 
that would beset her lonely path in the quartier latin 
when they were gone. 

Trilby never thought of such things as these ; she 
took short views of life, and troubled herself about no 
morrows. 

There was, however, one jarring figure in her little 
fool's paradise, a baleful and most ominous figure that 
constantly crossed her path, and came between her 
and the sun, and threw its shadow over her, and that 
was Svengali. 

He also was a frequent visitor at the studio in the 
Place St. Anatole, where much was forgiven him for 
the sake of his music, especially when he came with 
Gecko and they made music together. But it soon 
became apparent that they did not come there to play 
to the three Angliches ; it was to see Trilby, whom 
they both had taken it into their heads to adore, each 
in a different fashion : 



108 

Gecko, with a humble, doglike worship that ex- 
pressed itself in mute, pathetic deference and looks of 
lowly self - depreciation, of apology for his own un- 
worthy existence, as though the only requital he would 
ever dare to dream of were a word of decent polite- 
ness, a glance of tolerance or good-will— a mere bone 
to a dog. 

Svengali was a bolder wooer. When he cringed, it 
was with a mock humility full of sardonic threats ; 
when he was playful, it was with a terrible playful- 
ness, like that of a cat with a mouse — a weird ungain- 
ly cat, and most unclean ; a sticky, haunting, long, 
lean, uncanny, black spider-cat, if there is such an ani- 
mal outside a bad dream. 

It was a great grievance to him that she had suf- 
fered from no more pains in her eyes, Slie had ; but 
preferred to endure them rather than seek relief from 
him. 

So he would plaj'f ully try to mesmerize her with his 
glance, and sidle up nearer and nearer to her, making 
passes and counter-passes, with stern command in his 
eyes, till she would shake and shiver and almost sicken 
with fear, and all but feel the spell come over her, as 
in a nightmare, and rouse herself with a great effort 
and escape. 

If Taffy were there he would interfere with a friend- 
ly " Now then, old fellow, none of that !" and a jolly 
slap on the back, which would make Svengali cough 
for an hour, and paralyze his mesmeric powers for a 
week. 

Svengali had a stroke of good-fortune. He played 
at three grand concerts with Gecko, and had a well- 



109 

deserved success. He even gave a concert of his own, 
which made a furor, and blossomed out into beautiful 
and costly clothes of quite original color and shape 
and pattern, so that people would turn round and stare 
at him in the street — a thing he loved. He felt his 
fortune was secure, and ran into debt with tailors, 
hatters, shoemakers, jewellers, but paid none of his old 
debts to his friends. His pockets were always full of 
printed slips — things that had been written about him 
in the papers — and he would read them aloud to every- 
body he knew, especially to Trilby, as she sat darning 
socks on the model-throne while the fencing and box- 
ing were in train. And he would lay his fame and 
his fortune at her feet, on condition that she should 
share her life with him. 

" Ach, himmel, Drilpy !" he would say, " you don't 
know what it is to be a great pianist like me — hein ! 
What is your Little Billee, with his stinking oil-blad- 
ders, sitting mum in his corner, his mahlstick and his 
palette in one hand, and his twiddling little footle 
pig's-hair brush in the other! What noise does he 
make ? When his little fool of a picture is finished he 
will send it to London, and they will hang it on a wall 
with a lot of others, all in a line, like recruits called 
out for inspection, and the yawning public will walk 
by in procession and inspect, and say ' damn !' S vengali 
will go to London himself. Ha ! ha ! He will be all 
alone on a platform, and play as nobody else can play ; 
and hundreds of beautiful Englanderinnen will see 
and hear and go mad with love for him — Prinzessen, 
Coratessen, Serene English Altessen. They will soon 
lose their Serenity and their Highness when they 



110 

hear Svengali ! They will invite him to their palaces, 
and pay him a thousand francs to play for them ; and 
after, he will loll in the best arm-chair, and they will 
sit all round him on footstools, and bring him tea and 
gin and kiichen and marrons glaces, and lean over him 
and fan him — for he is tired after playing them for a 
thousand francs of Chopin ! Ha, ha ! I know all about 
it — hein ? 

" And he will not look at them, even ! He will look 
inward, at his own dream — and his dream will be 
about Drilpy — to lay his talent, his glory, his thousand 
francs at her beautiful white feet ! 

" Their stupid, big, fat, tow-headed, putty-nosed hus- 
bands will be mad with jealousy, and long to box him, 
but they will be afraid. Ach ! those beautiful An- 
glaises ! they will think it an honor to mend his shirts, 
to sew buttons on his pantaloons ; to darn his socks, 
as you are doing now for that sacred imbecile of a 
Scotchman who is always trying to paint toreadors, or 
that sweating, pig-headed bullock of an Englander who 
is always trying to get himself dirty and then to get 
himself clean again ! — e da capo ! 

"Himmel! what big socks are those! what potato- 
sacks ! 

" Look at your Taffy ! what is he good for but to 
bang great musicians on the back with his big bear's 
paw ! He finds that droll, the bullock ! . . . 

"Look at your Frenchmen there ^ your damned 
conceited verfluchte pig-dogs of Frenchmen — Durien, 
Barizel, Bouchardy ! What can a Frenchman talk of, 
hein? Only himself, and run down everybody else! 
His vanity makes me sick! He always thinks the 




TIT FOR TAT 



112 

world is talking about him^ the fool ! He forgets that 
there's a fellow called Smngali for the world to talk 
about ! I tell you, Drilpy, it is about me the world is 
talking — me and nobody else — me, me, me ! 

" Listen what they say in the Figaro " (reads it). 

" What do you think of that, hein ? What would 
your Durien say if people wrote of hivfi like that ? 

" But you are not listening, sapperment ! great big 
she -fool that you are — sheep's-head! Dummkopf ! 
Donnerwetter ! you are looking at the chimney-pots 
when Svengali is talking ! Look a little lower down 
between the houses, on the other side of the river! 
There is a little ugly gray building there, and inside 
are eight slanting slabs of brass, all of a row, like 
beds in a school dormitory, and one fine day you shall 
lie asleep on one of those slabs — you, Drilpy, who 
would not listen to Svengali, and therefore lost him ! 
. . , And over the middle of you will be a little 
leather apron, and over your head a little brass tap, 
and all day long and all night the cold water shall 
trickle, trickle, trickle all the way down your beauti- 
ful white body to your beautiful white feet till they 
turn green, and your poor, damp, draggled^ muddy rags 
will hang above you from the ceiling for your friends 
to know you by ; drip, drip, drip ! But you will have 
no friends. . . . 

" And people of all sorts, strangers, will stare at you 
through the big plate -glass windows — ^Englanders, 
chiffonniers, painters and sculptors, workmen, piou- 
pious, old hags of washer - women — and say, ' Ah ! 
what a beautiful woman was that ! Look at her 1 She 
ought to be rolling in her carriage and pair !' And 



113 

just then wlio should come b}^, rolling in his carriage 
and pair, smothered in furs, and smoking a big cigar 
of the Havana, but Svengali, who will jump out, and 
push the canaille aside, and say, " Ha ! ha ! that is la 
grande Drilpy, who would not listen to Svengali, but 
looked at the chimney-pots when he told her of his 
manly love, and — " 

" Hi ! damn it, Svengali, what the devil are you 
talking to Trilby about ? You're making her sick ; 
can't you see ? Leave off, and go to the piano, man, 
or I'll come and slap you on the back again !" 

Thus would that sweating, pig-headed bullock of an 
Englander stop Svengali's love-making and release 
Trilby from bad quarters of an hour. 

Then Svengali, who had a wholesome dread of the 
pig-headed bullock, would go to the piano and make 
impossible discords, and say : " Dear Drilpy, come and 
sing ' Pen Polt ' ! I am thirsting for those so beauti- 
ful chest notes ! Come !" 

Poor Trilby needed little pressing when she was 
asked to sing, and would go through her lamentable 
performance, to the great discomfort of Little Billee. 
It lost nothing of its grotesqueness from Svengali's 
accompaniment, which was a triumph of cacophony, 
and he would encourage her — " Tres pien, tres piftn, 9a 
y est !" 

When it was over, Svengali would test her ear, as 
he called it, and strike the C in the middle and then 
the F just above, and ask which was the highest; and 
she would declare they were both exactly the same. 
It was only when he struck a note in the bass and 
another in the treble that she could perceive any dif- 

8 



114 

ference, and said that the first sounded like pere 
Martin blowing up his wife, and the second like her 
little godson trying to make the peace between them. 

She was quite tone-deaf, and didn't know it; and 
he would pay her extravagant compliments on her 
musical talent, till Taffy would say: "Look here, 
Svengali, let's hear you sing a song!" 

And he would tickle him so masterfully under the 
ribs that the creature howled and became quite hys- 
terical. 

Then Svengali would vent his love of teasing on 
Little Billee, and pin his arms behind his back and 
swing him round, saying: "Hiramel! what's this for 
an arm? It's like a gh'l's !" 

" It's strong enough to paint !" said Little Billee. 

" And what's this for a leg? It's like a mahlstick!" 

" It's strong enough to kick, if you don't leave 
off !" 

And Little Billee, the young and tender, would let 
out his little heel and kick the German's shins; and 
just as the German was going to retaliate, big Taffy 
would pin his arms and make him sing another song, 
more discordant than Trilby's — for he didn't dream 
of kicking Taffy ; of that you may be sure ! 

Sucli was Svengali — only to be endured for the 
sake of his music — always ready to vex, frighten, 
bully, or torment anybody or anything smaller and 
weaker than himself — from a woman or a child to a 
mouse or a fly. 



Ipart Q:b(rD 

" Par de^a, ne dela la mer 
Ne S9ay dame ni daraoiselle 
Qui soit en tous biens parfaits telle— 
C'est un songe que d'y penser : 
Dieu! qu'il fait bon la regarder!" 

One lovely Monday morning in late September, at 
about eleven or so, Taffy and the Laird sat in the 
studio — each opposite his picture, smoking, nursing his 
knee, and saying nothing. The heaviness of Monday 
weighed on their spirits more than usual, for the three 
friends had returned late on the previous night from a 
week spent at Barbizon and in the forest of Fontaine- 
bleau — a heavenly week among the painters: Eous- 
seau, Millet, Corot, Daubigny, let us suppose, and 
others less known to fame this day. Little Billee, 
especially, had been fascinated by all this artistic 
life in blouses and sabots and immense straw hats and 
panamas, and had sworn to himself and to his friends 
that he would some day live and die there — pa>inting 
the forest as it is, and peopling it with beautiful peo- 
ple out of his own fancy — leading a healthy out-door 
life of simple wants and lofty aspirations. 

At length Taffy said : " Bother work this morning! 
I feel much more like a stroll in the Luxerabouro- Gar- 
dens and lunch at the Cafe de I'Odeon, where the ome- 
lets are good and the wine isn't blue." 




THE IIAPPV LIFE 



"The very thing I 
was thinking of my- 
self," said the Laird. 

So Taffy shpped on 
his old shooting-jacket 
and his old Harrow 
cricket cap, with the 
peak turned the wrong 
way, and the Laird put 
on an old great-coat of 
Taffy's that reached to 
his heels, and a battered straw hat they had found in 
the studio when they took it ; and both sallied forth 
into the mellow sunshine on the way to Carrel's. For 
they meant to seduce Little Billee from his work, that 
he might share in their laziness, greediness, and gen- 
eral demoralization. 

And ^vlioni should they meet coming down the nar- 
row turreted old Rue Vieille des Mauvais Ladres but 
Little Billee himself, with an air of general demoraliza- 
tion so tragic that they were quite alarmed. He had 
his ])aint-box and field-easel in one hand and his little 
valise in the other. He was pale, his hat on the back 



117 

of his head, his hair staring all at sixes and sevens, 
like a sick Scotch terrier's. 

" Good Lord ! what's the matter?" said Taify. 

" Oh ! oh ! oh ! she's sitting at Carrel's !" 

" "Who's sitting at Carrel's V 

" Trilby ! sitting to all those ruflBans ! There she 
was, just as I opened the door ; I saw her, I tell you ! 
The sight of her was like a blow between the eyes, 
and I bolted ! I shall never go back to that beastly 
hole again ! I'm off to Barbizon, to paint the forest ; , 
I was coming round to tell you. Good-bye ! . . ." 

" Stop a minute — are you mad?" said Taify, collar- 
ing him. 

" Let me go, Taffy — let me go, damn it ! I'll com.e 
back in a week — but I'm going now ! Let me go ; do 
you hear?" 

" But look here — I'll go with you." 

" No ; I want to be alone — quite alone. Let me go, 
I tell you !" 

" I sha'n't let you go unless you swear to me, on 
your honor, that you'll write directly you get there, 
and every day till you come back. Swear!" 

" All right ; I swear — honor bright ! Now there ! 
Good-bye — good-bye; back on Sunday — good-bye!" 
And he was off. 

"Now, what the devil does all that mean?" asked 
Taffy, much perturbed. 

" I suppose he's shocked at seeing Trilby in that 
guise, or disguise, or unguise, sitting at Carrel's — he's 
such an odd little chap. And I must say, I'm sur- 
prised at Trilby. It's a bad thing for her when we're 
away. What could have induced her ? She never sat 



118 

in a studio of that kind before. I thought she only 
sat to Durien and old Carrel." 

They walked for a while in silence. 

" Do you know, I've got a horrid idea that the little 
fool's in love with her !" 

" I've long had a horrid idea that she's in love with 
him.'''' 

" That would be a very stupid business," said 
Taffy. 

They walked on, brooding over those two horrid 
ideas, and the more they brooded, considered, and re- 
membered, the more convinced they became that both 
were right. 

" Here's a pretty kettle of fisli !" said the Laird — 
"and talking of fish, let's go and lunch." 

And so demoralized were the}'- that Taffy ate three 
omelets without thinking, and the Laird drank two half- 
bottles of wine, and Taffy three, and they walked 
about the whole of that afternoon for fear Trilby 
should come to the studio — and were very unhappy. 

This is how Trilby came to sit at Carrel's studio : 
Carrel had suddenly taken it into his head that he 
would spend a week there, and paint a figure among 
his pupils, that they might see and paint with — and if 
possible like — him. And he had asked Trilby as a 
great favor to be the model, and Trilby was so de- 
voted to the great Carrel that she readily consented. 
So that Monday morning found her there, and Carrel 
posed her as Ingres's famous figure in his picture 
called " La Source," holding a stone pitcher on her 
shoulder. 




' LET ME GO, TAFFY . . . 



120 

And the work began in religious silence. Then in 
live minutes or so Little Billee came bursting in, and 
as soon as he caught sight of her he stopped and 
stood as one petritied, his shoulders up, his eyes star- 
ing. Then lifting his arms, he turned and fled. 

"Qu'est ce qu'il a done, ce Litrebili?" exclaimed one 
or two students (for they had turned his English nick- 
name into French). 

" Perhaps he's forgotten something," said another. 
"Perhaps he's forgotten to brush his teeth and part 
his hair!" 

" Perhaps he's forgotten to say his prayers !" said 
Barizel. 

" He'll come back, I hope !" exclaimed the master. 

And the incident gave rise to no further com- 
ment. 

But Trilby was much disquieted, and fell to won- 
dering what on earth was the matter. 

At first she wondered in French : French of the 
quart ier latin. She had not seen Little Billee for a 
week, and wondered if he were ill. She had looked 
forward so much to his painting her — painting her 
beautifully — and hoped he would soon come back, and 
lose no time. 

Then she began to wonder in English — nice clean 
English of the studio in the Place St. Anatole des 
Arts — her father's English — and suddenl}'^ a quick 
thought pierced her through and through, and made 
the flesh tingle on her insteps and the backs of her 
hands, and bathed her brow and temples with sweat. 

She had good eyes, and Little Billee had a singular- 
ly expressive face. 



121 



Could it possibly be that he was shocked at seeing 
her sitting there ? 

She knew that he was peculiar in many ways. She 
remembered that neither he nor Taffy nor the Laird 
had ever asked her to sit for the figure, though she 
would have been only 
too delighted to do so 
for them. She also re- 
membered how Little 
Billee had alwa3'^s been 
silent whenever she al- 
luded to her posing 
for the "altogether," 
as she called it, and 
had sometimes looked 
pained and alwaj's very 
grave. 

She turned alternate- 
ly pale and red, pale 
and red all over, again 
and again, as the 
thought grew up in 
her — and soon the 
growing thought be- 
came a torment. 

This new-born feel- 
ino" of shame was un- " ' qu'est ce qu'il a donc, ce litrebili ?' " 
endurable — its birth a 

travail that racked and rent every fibre of her moral 
being, and she suffered agonies beyond anything she 
had ever felt in her life. 

" What is the matter with you, my child % Are you 




122 

ill 'r asked Carrel, who, like every one else, was very 
fond of her, and to whom she had sat as a child (" I'En- 
fance de Psyche," now in the Luxembourg Gallery, was 
painted from her). 

She shook her head, and the work went on. 

Presently she dropped her pitcher, that broke into 
bits ; and putting her two hands to her face she burst 
into tears and sobs — and there, to the amazement of 
everybody, she stood crying like a big baby — " La 
source aux larmes?" 

" What is the matter, my poor dear child ?" said Car- 
rel, jumping up and helping her off the throne. 

" Oh, I don't know — I don't know — Pm ill — wery ill 
— let me go home !" 

And with kind solicitude and despatch they helped 
her on with her clothes, and Carrel sent for a cab and 
took her home. 

And on the way she dropped her head on his shoul- 
der, and wept, and told him all about it as well as she 
could, and Monsieur Carrel had tears in his eyes too, 
and wished to Heaven he had never induced her to sit 
for the figure, either then or at any other time. And 
pondering deeply and sorrowfully on such terrible re- 
sponsibility (he had grown-up daughters of his own), he 
went back to the studio; and in an hour's time they got 
another model and another pitcher, and went to work 
again. 

And Trilby, as she lay disconsolate on her bed all 
that day and all the next, and all the next again, 
thought of her past life with agonies of shame and 
remorse that made the pain in her eyes seem as a 



123 

light and welcome relief. For it came, and tortured 
worse and lasted longer than it had ever done before. 
But she soon found, to her miserable bewilderment, 
that mind-aches are the worst of all. 

Then she decided that she must write to one of the 
trois Angliches, and chose the Laird. 

She was more familiar with him than with the other 
two: it was impossible not to be familiar with the 
Laird if he liked one, as he was so easy-going and 
demonstrative, for all that he was such a canny 
Scot ! Then she had nursed him through his illness ; 
she had often hugged and kissed him before the 
whole studio full of people — and even when alone 
with him it had always seemed quite natural for her 
to do so. It was like a child caressing a favorite 
young uncle or elder brother. And though the good 
Laird was the least susceptible of mortals, he would 
often find these innocent blandishments a somewhat 
trying ordeal! She had never taken such a liberty 
with Taffy ; and as for Little Billee, she would sooner 
have died ! 

So she wrote to the Laird. I give her letter with- 
out the spelling, which was often faulty, although her 
nightly readings had much improved it : 

" My deak Feiend, — I am very unhappy. I was sit- 
ting at Carrel's, in the Rue des Potirons, and Little Bil- 
lee came in, and was so shocked and disgusted that he 
ran away and never came back. 

" I saw it all in his face. 

"I sat there because M. Carrel asked me to. He 
has always been very kind to me — M. Carrel — ever 



134 

since I was a child ; and I would do anything to 
please him, but never that again. 

" He was there too. 

" I never thought anything about sitting before. I 
sat first as a child to M. Carrel. Mamma made me, 
and made me promise not to tell papa, and so I didn't. 
It soon seemed as natural to sit for people as to run 
errands for them, or wash and mend their clothes. 
Papa wouldn't have liked my doing that either, though 
we wanted the money badly. And so he never knew. 

" I have sat for the altogether to several other people 
besides — M. Gerorae, Durien, the two Hennequins, and 
i^mile Baratier ; and for the head and hands to lots of 
people, and for the feet only to Charles Faure, Andi 6 
Besson, Mathieu Dumoulin, and Collinet. Nobody 
else. 

" It seemed as natural for me to sit as for a man. 
Now I see the awful difference. 

" And I have done dreadful things besides, as you 
must know — as all the quartier knows. Baratier and 
Besson ; but not Durien, though people think so. No- 
body else, I swear — except old Monsieur Penque at the 
beginning, who was mamma's friend. 

" It makes me almost die of shame and miser}^ to 
think of it ; for that's not like sitting. I knew how 
wrong it was all along — and there's no excuse for me, 
none. Though lots of people do as bad, and nobody 
in the quartier seems to think any the worse of them. 

" If you and Taffy and Little Billee cut me, I really 
think I shall go mad and die. Without your friend- 
ship I shouldn't care to live a bit. Dear Sandy, I love 
your little finger better than any man or woman I 



126 



ever met ; and Taffy's and Little Billee's little fingers 
too. 

"What shall I do? I daren't go out for fear of 
meeting one of you. Will you come and see me ? 

"I am never going to sit again, not even for the 
face and hands. I am going back to be a llancMs- 
seuse de Jin with my old friend Angele Boisse, v/ho is 
getting on very well indeed, in the Rue des Cloitres 
Ste. Petronille. 

" You will come and see me, won't you? I shall be 
in all day till you do. Or else I will meet you some- 
where, if you will tell me where and when; or else 1 
will go and see you in the studio, if you are sure to 
be alone. Please don't keep me waiting long for an 
answer. 

" You don't know what I'm suffering. 

" Your ever-loving, faithful friend, 

"Tkilby O'Fekeall." 

She sent this letter by hand, and the Laird came in 
less than ten minutes after she had sent it ; and she 
hugged and kissed and cried over him so that he was 
almost ready to cr}'- himself ; but he burst out laugh- 
ing instead — which was better and more in his line, 
and very much morfe comforting — and talked to her so 
nicely and kindly and naturally that by the time he 
left her humble attic in the Rue des Pousse-Cailloux 
her very aspect, which had quite shocked him when 
he first saw her, had almost become what it usually 
was. 

The little room under the leads, with its sloping 
roof and mansard window, was as scrupulously neat 



127 

and clean as if its tenant had been a holy sister who 
taught the noble daughters of France at some Convent 
of the Sacred Heart. There were nasturtiums and 
mignonette on the outer window-sill, and convolvulus 
was trained to climb round the window. 

As she sat by his side on the narrow white bed, 
clasping and stroking his painty, turpentiny hand, and 
kissing it every five minutes, he talked to her like a 
father — as he told Taffy afterwards— and scolded her 
for having been so silly as not to send for him directly, 
or come to the studio. He said how glad he was, how 
glad they would all be, that she was going to give up 
sitting for the figure — not, of course, that there was 
any real harm in it, but it was better not — and espe- 
cially how happy it would make them to feel she in- 
tended to live straight for the future. Little Billee 
was to remain at Barbizon for a little while ; but she 
must promise to come and dine with Taffy and himself 
that very day, and cook the dinner; and when he 
went back to his picture, " Les Noces du Toreador " — 
saying to her as he left, " a ce soir done, mille sacres 
tonnerres de nong de Dew !" — he left the happiest 
woman in the whole Latin quarter behind him : she 
had confessed and been forgiven. 

And w4th shame and repentance and confession and 
forgiveness had come a strange new feeling — that of a 
dawning self-respect. 

Hitherto, for Trilby, self-respect had meant little 
more than the mere cleanliness of her body, in which 
she had always revelled ; alas ! it was one of the con- 
ditions of her humble calling. It now meant another 
kind of cleanliness, and she would luxuriate in it for 



128 

evermore ; and the dreadful past — never to be forgot- 
ten by her — should be so lived down as in time, per- 
haps, to be forgotten by others. 

The dinner that evening was a memorable one for 
Trilby. After she had washed up the knives and forks 
and plates and dishes, and put them by, she sat and 
sewed. She wouldn't even smoke her cigarette, it re- 
minded her so of things and scenes she now hated. 
No more cigarettes for Trilby O'Ferrall. 

They all talked of Little Billee. She heard about 
the way he had been brought up, about his mother 
and sister, the people he had always lived among. She 
also heard (and her heart alternately rose and sank as 
she listened) what his future was likely to be, and how 
rare his genius was, and how great — if his friends were 
to be trusted. Fame and fortune would soon be his — 
such fame and fortune as fell to the lot of very few — 
unless anything should happen to spoil his promise 
and mar his prospects in life, and ruin a splendid 
career; and the rising of the heart was all for him, 
the sinking for herself. How could she ever hope 
to be even the friend of such a man? Might she 
ever hope to be his servant — his faithful, humble 
servant ? 

Little Billee spent a month at Barbizon, and when 
he came back it was with such a brown face that his 
friends hardly knew him ; and he brought with him 
such studies as made his friends "sit up." 

The crushing sense of their own hopeless inferiority 
was lost in wonder at his work, in love and enthusiasm 
for the workman. 




CONFESSION 



130 

Their Little Billee, so young and tender, so weak of 
bod}'', so strong of purpose, so warm of heart, so light 
of hand, so keen and quick and piercing of brain and 
eye, was their master, to be stuck on a pedestal and 
looked up to and bowed down to, to be watched and 
warded and worshipped for evermore. 

"When Trilby came in from her work at six, and he 
shook hands with her and said " Hullo, Trilby !" her 
face turned pale to the lips, her under-lip quivered, and 
she gazed down at him (for she was among the tallest 
of her sex) with such a moist, hungry, wide-eyed look 
of humble craving adoration that the Laird felt his 
worst fears were realized, and the look Little Billee 
sent up in return filled the manly bosom of Taffy with 
an equal apprehension. 

Then they all four went and dined together at le 
pure Trin's, and Trilby went back to her hlanchisserie 
de fin. 

Next day Little Billee took his work to show Carrel, 
and Carrel invited him to come and finish his picture 
'' The Pitcher Goes to the Well " at his own private 
studio — an unheard-of favor, which the boy accepted 
with a thrill of proud gratitude and affectionate rev- 
erence. 

So little was seen for some time of Little Billee at 
the studio in the Place St. Anatole des Arts, and little 
of Trilby ; a hlanchissetise defin has not many minutes 
to spare from her irons. But they often met at din- 
ner. And on Sunday mornings Trilb}'^ came to repair 
the Laird's linen and darn his socks and look after his 
little comforts, as usual, and spend a happy day. And 
on Sunday afternoons the studio would be as lively as 



131 

ever, with the fencing and boxing, the piano-playing 
and fiddhng — all as it used to be. 

And week by week the friends noticed a gradual 
and subtle change in Trilby. She was no longer 
slangy in French, unless it were now and then by a 
slip of the tongue, no longer so facetious and droll, 
and yet she seemed even happier than she had ever 
seemed before. 

Also, she grew thinner, especially in the face, where 
the bones of her cheeks and jaw began to show them- 
selves, and these bones were constructed on such riffht 
principles (as were those of her brow and chin and the 
bridge of her nose) that the improvement was aston- 
ishing, almost inexplicable. 

Also, she lost her freckles as the summer waned and 
she herself went less into the open air. And she let 
her hair grow, and made of it a small knot at the back 
of her head, and showed her little flat ears, which 
were charming, and just in the right place, very far 
back and rather high; Little Billee could not have 
placed them better himself. Also, her mouth, always 
too large, took on a firmer and sweeter outline, and 
her big British teeth were so white and even that even 
Frenchmen forgave them their British bigness. And 
a new soft brightness came into her eyes that no one 
had ever seen there before. They were stars, just 
twin gray stars — or rather planets just thrown off by 
some new sun, for the steady mellow light they gave 
out was not entirely their own. 

Favorite types of beauty change with each succeed- 
ing generation. These were the days of Buckner's 
aristocratic Album beauties, with lofty foreheads, oval 



133 

faces, little aquiline noses, heart-shaped little mouths, 
soft dimpled chins, drooping shoulders, and long side 
ringlets that fell over them — the Lady Arabellas and 
the Lady Clementinas, Musidoras and Medoras! A 
type that will perhaps come back to us some day. 

May the present scribe be dead ! 

Trilby's type would be infinitely more admired now 
than in the fifties. Her photograph would be in the 
shop-windows. Sir Edward Burne-Jones — if I may 
make so bold as to say so — would perhaps have marked 
her for his own, in spite of her almost too exuberant 
joyousness and irrepressible vitality. Eossetti might 
have evolved another new formula from her; Sir 
John Millais another old one of the kind that is al- 
ways new and never sates nor palls — like Clytie, let 
us say — ever old and ever new as love itself ! 

Trilby's type was in singular contrast to the type 
Gavarni had made so popular in the Latin quarter 
at the period we are writing of, so that those who 
fell so readily under her charm were rather apt to 
wonder why. Moreover, she was thought much too 
tall for her sex, and her day, and her station in life, 
and especially for the country she lived in. She 
hardly looked up to a bold gendarme! and a bold 
gendarme was nearly as tall as a " dragon de la garde," 
who was nearly as tall as an average English police- 
man. Not that she was a giantess, by any means. 
She was about as tall as Miss Ellen Terry — and that 
is a charming height, / think. 

One day Taffy remarked to the Laird : " Hang it ! 
I'm blest if Trilby isn't the handsomest woman I 
know ! She looks like a grande dame masquerading 



134 

as a grisette — almost like a joyful saint at times. 
She's lovely ! By Jove ! I couldn't stand her hugging 
me as she does you ! There'd be a tragedy — say the 
slaughter of Little Billee." 

" Ah ! Taffy, my boy," rejoined the Laird, " when 
those long sisterly arms are round my neck it isn't me 
she's hugging." 

" And then," said Taffy, " what a trump she is ! 
Why, she's as upright and straight and honorable as 
a man! And what she says to one about one's self is 
always so pleasant to hear ! That's Irish, I suppose. 
And, what's more, it's always true." 

" Ah, that's Scotch !" said the Laird, and tried to 
wink at Little Billee, but Little Billee wasn't there. 

Even Svengali perceived the strange metamorpho- 
sis. " Ach, Drilpy," he would say, on a Sunday after- 
noon, " how beautiful you are ! It drives me mad ! I 
adore you. I like you thinner ; you have such beau- 
tiful bones ! Why do you not answer my letters ? 
What ! you do not read them? You hum them? And 
yet I — Donnerwetter ! I forgot! The grisettes of 
the quartier latin have not learned how to read or 
write ; they have only learned how to dance the can- 
can with the dirty little pig -dog monkeys they call 
men. Sacrement ! We will teach the little pig - dog 
monkeys to dance something else some day, w^e Ger- 
mans. We will make music for them to dance to! 
Boum ! boum ! Better than the waiter at the Cafe de 
la Rotonde, hein? And the grisettes of the quartier 
latin shall pour us out your little white wine — 'fotre 
betit fin plane,' as your pig -dog monkey of a poet 
says, your rotten verfluchter De Musset, ' who has got 



135 



such a splendid future behind him' ! Bah ! What do 
you know of Monsieur Alfred de Musset? We have 
got a poet too, my Drilpy. His name is Ileinrich 
Heine. If he's still alive, he lives in Paris, in a little 
street off the Champs Elysees. He lies in bed all day 
long, and only sees out 
of one eye, like the 
Countess Hahn - Hahn, 
ha! ha! He adores 
P'rench grisettes. He 
married one. Her name 
is Mathilde, and she has 
got siissen fiissen, like 
you. He would adore 
you too, for your beau- 
tiful bones ; he would 
like to count them one 
by one, for he is very 
playful, like me. And, 
ach ! what a beautiful 
skeleton you will make ! 

And very soon, too, because 3^ou do not smile on your 
madly-loving Svengali. You burn his letters without 
reading them ! You shall have a nice little mahogany 
glass case all to yourself in the museum of the Ecole de 
Medecine, and Svengali shall come in his new fur-lined 
coat, smoking his big cigar of the Havana, and push 
the dirty carabins out of the way, and look through 
the holes of your eyes into your stupid empty skull, 
and up the nostrils of your high, bony sounding-board 
of a nose without either a tip or a lip to it, and into the 
roof of your big mouth, with your thirty-two big Eng. 




"twin gray stars" 



136 

lish teeth, and between your big ribs into your big 
chest, where the big leather lungs used to be, and say, 
' Ach ! what a pity she had no more music in her than 
a big tomcat!' And then he will look all down your 
bones to your poor crumbling feet, and say, ' Ach ! 
what a fool she was not to answer Svengali's letters !' 
and the dirty carabins shall — " 

" Shut up, you sacred fool, or I'll precious soon spoil 
ijour skeleton for you." 

Thus the short-tempered Taffj'', who had been lis- 
tening. 

Then Svengali, scowling, would play Chopin's fu- 
neral march more divinely than ever ; and where the 
pretty, soft part comes in, he would whisper to Trilby, 
" That is Svengali coming to look at you in your little 
mahogany glass case !" 

And here let me say that these vicious imaginations 
of Svengali's, which look so tame in English print, 
sounded much more ghastly in French, pronounced 
with a Hebrew - German accent, and uttered in his 
hoarse, rasping, nasal, throaty rook's caw, his big yel- 
low teeth baring themselves in a mongrel canine snarl, 
his heavy upper eyelids drooping over his insolent 
black eyes. 

Besides which, as he played the lovely melody he 
would go through a ghoulish pantomime, as though he 
were taking stock of the diiferent bones in her skeleton 
with greedy but discriminating approval. And when 
he came down to the feet, he was almost droll in the 
intensity of his terrible realism. But Trilby did not 
appreciate this exquisite fooling, and felt cold all over. 

He seemed to her a dread, powerful demon, who, 



137 



but for Taffy (who alone could hold him in check), 
oppressed and weighed on her like an incubus — and 
she dreamed of him oftener than she dreamed of 
Taffy, the Laird, or even Little Billee ! 



Thus pleasantly and smoothly, and without much 
change or adventure, things went on till Christmas- 
time. 

Little Billee seldom spoke of Trilby, or Trilby of 
him. Work went on every morning at the studio in 
the Place St. Anatole des Arts, and pictures were be- 
gun and finished — little pictures that didn't take long 
to paint — the Laird's Spanish bull-fighting scenes, in 
which the bull never appeared, and which he sent to 
his native Dundee and sold there ; Taffy's tragic little 
dramas of life in 
the slums of Paris 
— starvings, drown- 
ings — suicides by 
charcoal and poison 
— which he sent ev- 
erywhere, but did 
not sell. 

Little Billee was 
painting all this time 
at Carrel's studio — 
his private one — and 
seemed preoccupied 
and happy when 
they all met at meal- 
time, and less talka- 
tive even than usual. 




AN INCUBUS 



138 

He had always been the least talkative of the three ; 
more prone to listen, and no doubt to think the more. 

In the afternoon people came and went as usual, 
and boxed and fenced and did gymnastic feats, and 
felt Taffy's biceps, which by this time equalled Mr. 
Sandow's ! 

Some of these people were very pleasant and re- 
markable, and have become famous since then in Eng- 
land, France, America — or have died, or married, and 
come to grief or glory in other ways. It is the Ballad 
of the Bouillabaisse all over again ! 

It might be worth while my trying to sketch some 
of the more noteworthy, now that my story is slowing 
for a wiiile — like a French train when the engine- 
driver sees a long carved tunnel in front of him, as I 
do — and no light at the other end ! 

My humble attempts at characterization might be 
useful as "memoires pour servir" to future biogra- 
phers. Besides, there are other reasons, as the reader 
will soon discover. 

There was Durien, for instance — Trilby's especial 
French adorer, " pour le bon motif !" a son of the peo- 
ple, a splendid sculptor, a very fine character in every 
way — so perfect, indeed, that there is less to say about 
him than any of the others — modest, earnest, simple, 
frugal, chaste, and of untiring industry ; living for his 
art, and perhaps also a little for Trilby, whom he 
would have been only too glad to marr3\ He was 
Pygmalion;, she was his Galatea — a Galatea whose 
marble heart would never beat for Jiim ! 

Durien's house is now the finest in the Pare Mon- 
ceau; his wife and daughters are the best -dressed 



139 

women in Paris, and he one of the happiest of men ; 
but he will never quite forget poor Galatea : 

" La belle aux pieds d'albatre — aux deux talons de 
rose !" 

Then there was Vincent, a Yankee medical student, 
who could both work and play. 

lie is now one of the greatest oculists in the world, 
and Europeans cross the Atlantic to consult him. lie 
can still pla3% and Avhen he crosses the Atlantic him- 
self for that purpose he has to travel incognito like a 
royalty, lest his play should be marred by work. And 
his daughters are so beautiful and accomplished that 
British dukes have sighed after them in vain. In- 
deed, these fair young ladies spend their autumn holi- 
day in refusing the British aristocracy. We are told 
so in the society papers, and I can quite believe it. 
Love is not always blind; and if he is, Vincent is the 
man to cure him. 

In those days he prescribed for us all round, and 
punched and stethoscoped us, and looked at our tongues 
for love, and told us what to eat, drink, and avoid, and 
even where to go for it. 

For instance : late one night Little Billee woke up 
in a cold sweat, and thought himself a dying man — he 
had felt seedy all day and taken no food ; so he dressed 
and dragged himself to Vincent's hotel, and woke him 
up, and said, " Oh, Vincent, Vincent ! I'm a dying 
man !" and all but fainted on his bed. Vincent felt 
him all over with the greatest care, and asked him 
many questions. Then, looking at his watch, he de- 
livered himself thus : " Humph ! 3.30 ! rather late — 



140 

but still — look here, Little Billee— do you know the 
Halle, on the other side of the water, where they 
sell vegetables ?" 

" Oh yes ! yes ! What vegetable shall I — " 
" Listen ! On the north side are two restaurants, 
Bordier and Baratte. They remain open all night. 
Now go straight off to one of those tuck shops, and 
tuck in as big a supper as you possibl}' can. Some 
people prefer Baratte. I prefer Bordier myself. Per- 
haps you'd better try Bordier first and Baratte after. 
At all events, lose no time ; so off you go !" 
Thus he saved Little Billee from an early grave. 

Then there was the Greek, a boy of only sixteen, 
but six feet high, and looking ten years older than he 
was, and able to smoke even stronger tobacco than 
Taffy himself, and color pipes divinely ; he Avas a 
great favorite in the Place St. Anatole, for his hm- 
homie, his niceness, his warm geniality. lie was the 
capitalist of this select circle (and nobly lavish of his 
capital). He went by the name of Poluphloisboios- 
paleapologos Petrilopetrolicoconose — for so he was 
christened by the Laird — because his real name Avas 
thought much too long and much too lovel}' for the 
quartier latin, and reminded one of the Isles of Greece 
— where burning Sappho loved and sang. 

What was he learning in the Latin quarter? 
French 'I He spoke French like a native ! Nobod}^ 
knows. But when his Paris friends transferred their 
bohemia to London, where Avere they ever made hap- 
pier and more at home than in his lordly parental 
abode— or fed Avith nicer thinns 'i 




THE CAPITALIST AND THE SWELL 



143 

That abode is now his, and lordlier than ever, as 
becomes the dwelling of a millionaire and city mag- 
nate ; and its gray -bearded owner is as genial, as jolly, 
and as hospitable as in the old Paris days, but he no 
longer colors pipes. 

Then there was Carnegie, fresh from BalHol, red- 
olent of the 'varsity. He intended himself then for 
the diplomatic service, and came to Paris to learn 
French as it is spoke; and spent most of his time 
with his fashionable English friends on the right side 
of the river, and the rest with Taffy, the Laird, and 
Little Billee on the left. Perhaps that is why he has 
not become an ambassador. He is now only a rural 
dean, and speaks the worst French I know, and speaks 
it wherever and whenever he can. 

It serves him right, I think. 

He was fond of lords, and knew some (at least, he 
gave one that impression), and often talked of them, 
and dressed so beautifully that even Little Billee was 
abashed in his presence. Only Taffy, in his threadbare 
out-at-elbow shooting- jacket and cricket cap, and the 
Laird, in his tattered straw hat and Taffy's old over- 
coat down to his heels, dared to walk arm in arm 
with him — nay, insisted on doing so — as they listened 
to the band in the Luxembourg Gardens. 

And his whiskers were even longer and thicker and 
more golden than Taffy's own. But the mere sight 
of a boxing-glove make him sick. 

Then there was the yellow-haired Antony, a Swiss — 
the idle apprentice, le " roi des truands," as we called 



143 

him — to whom everything was forgiven, as to Fran- 
9ois Villon, a cause de ses gentillesses surely, for all 
his reprehensible pranks, the gentlest and most lov- 
able creature that ever lived in bohemia, or out of it. 

Always in debt, like Svengali — for he had no more 
notion of the value of money than a humming-bird, 
and gave away in reckless generosity to friends what 
in strictness belonged to his endless creditors — like 
Svengali, humorous, witty, and a most exquisite and 
orio-inal artist, and also somewhat eccentric in his at- 
tire (though scrupulously clean), so that people would 
stare at him as he walked along — a thing that always 
gave him dire offence ! But unlike Svengali, full of 
delicacy, refinement, and distinction of mind and man- 
ner — void of any self-conceit — and, in spite of the ir- 
regularities of his life, the very soul of truth and hon- 
or, as gentle as he was chivalrous and brave — the 
warmest, stanchest, sincerest, most unselfish friend 
in the world ; and, as long as his purse was full, the 
best and drollest boon companion in the world — but 
that was not forever ! 

When the money was gone, then would Antony hie 
him to some beggarly attic in some lost Parisian 
slum, and write his own epitaph in lovely French or 
German verse — or even English (for he was an as- 
tounding linguist) ; and, telling himself that he was 
forsaken by family, friends, and mistress alike, look 
out of his casement over the Paris chimney-pots for 
the last time, and listen once more to " the harmonies 
of nature," as he called it — and " aspire towards the in- 
finite," and bewail "the cruel deceptions of his life" — 
and finally lay himself down to die of sheer starvation. 



144 

And as he lay and waited for his release that was 
so long in coming, he would beguile the weary hours 
by mumbling a crust " watered with his own salt 
tears," and decorating his epitaph with fanciful de- 
signs of the most exquisite humor, pathos, and beauty 
— these illustrated epitaphs of the young Antony, of 
which there exists a goodly number, are now price- 
less, as all collectors know all over the world. 

Fainter and fainter would he grow — and finally, 
on the third day or thereabouts, a remittance would 
reach him from some long-suffering sister or aunt in 
far Lausanne — or else the fickle mistress or faithless 
friend (who had been looking for him all over Paris) 
would discover his hiding-place, the beautiful epitaph 
would be walked off in triumph to le pere Marcas in 
tlie Rue du Ghette and sold for twenty, fifty, a hun- 
dred francs — and then Vogue la galere! And back 
again to bohemia, dear bohemia and all its joys, as 
long as the money lasted . . . e poi^ da mj>o! 

And now that his name is a household word in 
two hemispheres, and he himself an honor and a glory 
to the land he has adopted as his own, he loves to re- 
member all this and look back from the lofty pinnacle 
on which he sits perched up aloft to the impecunious 
days of his idle apprenticeship — le hon temps oil Von 
etait si malheureux I 

And with all that Quixotic dignity of his, so fa- 
mous is he as a wit that when he jokes (and he is 
always joking) people laugh first, and then ask what 
he was joking about. And you can even make your 
own mild funniments raise a roar by merely prefacing 
them " as Antony once said !" 



■ 145 

The present scribe has often done so. 

And if by a happy fluke you should some day hit 
upon a really good thing of your own — good enough 
to be quoted — be sure it will come back to you after 
many days prefaced " as Antony once said." 

And these jokes are so good-natured that j^ou al- 
most resent their being made at anybod3''s expense 
but your own — never from Antony 

"The aimless jest tliat sti-iking has caused pain, 
The idle word that he'd wish back again !" 

Indeed, in spite of his success, I don't suppose he ever 
made an enemy in his life. 

And here, let me add (lest there be any doubt as to 
his identity), that he is now tall and stout and strik- 
ingly handsome, though rather bald — and such an aris- 
tocrat in bearing, aspect, and manner that you would 
take him for a blue-blooded descendant of the cru- 
saders instead of the son of a respectable burgher in 
Lausanne. 

Then there was Lorrimer, the industrious apprentice, 
who is now also well-pinnacled on high ; himself a 
pillar of the Royal Academy — probably, if he lives 
long enough, its future president — the duly knighted 
or baroneted Lord Mayor of " all the plastic arts " 
(except one or two perhaps, here and there, that are 
not altogether without some importance). 

May this not be for many, many years ! Lorrimer 
himself would be the first to say so ! 

Tall, thin, red-haired, and well-favored, he was a 
most eager, earnest, and painstaking young enthusi- 

10 



146 

ast, of precocious culture, who read improving books, 
and did not share in the amusements of the quartier 
latin, but spent his evenings at home with Handel, 
Michael Angelo, and Dante, on the respectable side of 
the river. Also, he went into good society sometimes, 
with a dress -coat on, and a white tie, and his hair 
parted in the middle ! 

But in spite of these blemishes on his otherwise ex- 
emplary record as an art student, he was the most de- 
lightful companion — the most affectionate, helpful, and 
sympathetic of friends. May he live long and prosper ! 

Enthusiast as he was, he could only worship one 
god at a time. It was either Michael Angelo, Phidias, 
Paul Yeronese, Tintoret, Eaphael, or Titian — never a 
modern — moderns didn't exist! And so thorough- 
going was he in his worship, and so persistent in voic- 
ing it, that he made those immortals quite unpopular 
in the Place St. Anatole des Arts. We grew to dread 
their very names. Each of them would last him a 
couple of months or so ; then he would give us a 
month's holiday, and take up another. 

Antony did not think much of Lorrimer in those 
days, nor Lorrimer of him, for all they were such 
good friends. And neither of them thought much of 
Little Billee, whose pinnacle (of pure unadulterated 
fame) is now the highest of all — the highest probably 
that can be for a mere painter of pictures ! 

And what is so nice about Lorrimer, now that he is 
a gray beard, an academician, an accomplished man of 
the world and society, is that he admires Antony's 
genius more than he can say — and reads Mr. Rudyard 
Kipling's delightful stories as well as Dante's " In- 



147 

ferno" — and can listen with delight to the lovely 
songs of Signor Tosti, who has not precisely founded 
himself on Handel — can even scream with laughter at 
a comic song — even a nigger melody — so, at least, that 
it but be sung in well-bred and distinguished company 
— for Lorrimer is no bohemian. 

"Shoo, fly! don'tcher bother me! 
For I belong to the Comp'ny G !" 

Both these famous men are happily (and most beau- 
tifully) married — grandfathers, for all I know — and 
"move in the very best society" (Lorrimer always, 
I'm told ; Antony now and then) ; "la haute," as it used 
to be called in French bohemia — meaning dukes and 
lords and even royalties, I suppose, and those who 
love them and whom they love. 

That is the best society, isn't it ? At all events, we 
are assured it used to be ; but that must have been be- 
fore the present scribe (a meek and somewhat inno- 
cent outsider) had been privileged to see it with his 
own little eye. 

And when they happen to meet there (Antony and 
Lorrimer, I mean), I don't expect they rush very 
wildly into each other's arms, or talk very fluently 
about old times. Nor do I suppose their wives are 
very intimate. None of our wives are. Not even 
Taffy's and the Laird's. 

Oh, Orestes ! Oh, Pylades ! 

Oh, ye impecunious, unpinnacled young insepara- 
bles of eighteen, nineteen, twenty, even twenty- five, 
who share each other's thoughts and purses, and wear 



148 

each other's clothes, and swear each other's oaths, and 
smoke each other's pipes, and respect each other's 
hghts o' love, and keep each other's secrets, and tell 
each other's jokes, and pawn each other's watches and 
merrymake together on the proceeds, and sit all night 
by each other's bedsides in sickness, and comfort each 
other in sorrow and disappointment with silent, manly 
sympathy — " wait till you get to forty year !" 

Wait even till each or either of you gets himself a 
little pinnacle of his own — be it ever so humble ! 

Nay, wait till either or each of you gets himself a 
wife ! 

History goes on repeating itself, and so do novels, 
and this is a platitude, and there's nothing new under 
the sun. 

May too cecee (as the idiomatic Laird would say, in 
the language he adores) — may too cecee ay nee eecee 
nee lah ! 

Then there was Dodor, the handsome ,young dra- 
gon de la garde — a full private, if you please, with a 
beardless face, and damask-rosy cheeks, and a small 
waist, and narrow feet like a lady's, and who, strange 
to say, spoke English just like an Englishman. 

And his friend Gontran, alias V Zouzou — a corporal 
in the Zouaves. 

Both of these worthies had met Taffy in the Cri- 
mea, and frequented the studios in the quartier latin, 
where they adored (and were adored by^i the grisettes 
and models, especially Trilby. 

Both of them were distinguished for being the worst 
subjects (les plus inauvais snjets) of their respective 



149 

regiments ; yet both were special favorites not only 
with their fellow-rankers, but with those in command, 
from their colonels downward. 

Both were in the habit of being promoted to the 
rank of corporal or brigadier, and degraded to the 
rank of private next day for general misconduct, the 
result of a too exuberant delight in their promotion. 

Neither of them knew fear, envy, malice, temper, or 
low spirits ; ever said or did an ill-natured thing; ever 
even thought one ; ever had an enemy but himself. 
Both had the best or the worst manners going, ac- 
cording to their company, whose manners they re- 
flected ; they were true chameleons ! 

Both were always ready to share their last ten-sou 
piece (not that they ever seemed to have one) with 
each other or anybody else, or anybody else's last ten- 
sou piece with you ; to ofi'er you a friend's cigar ; to 
invite you to dine with any friend they had ; to fight 
with you, or for you, at a moment's notice. And they 
made up for all the anxiety, tribulation, shame, and 
sorrow they caused at home by the endless fun and 
amusement they gave to all outside. 

It was a pretty dance they led ; but our three 
friends of the Place St. Anatole (who hadn't got to 
pay the pipers) loved them both, especially Dodor. 

One fine Sunday afternoon Little Billee found him- 
self studying life and character in that most delight- 
ful and festive scene la Fete de St. Cloud, and met 
Dodor and F Zouzou there, who hailed him with de- 
light, saying : 

" Nous allons joliment jubiler, nom d'une pipe !" and 
insisted on his joining in their amusements and pay- 



150 

ing for them — roundabouts, swings, the giant, the 
dwarf, the strong man, the fat woman — to whom they 
made love and were taken too seriously, and turned 
out — the menagerie of wild beasts, whom they teased 
and aggravated till the police had to interfere. Also 
alfresco dances, where their cancan step was of the 
wildest and most unbridled character, till a sous- 
otiicier or a gendarme came in siglit, and then they 
danced quite mincingly and demurely, en mait/re 
d'ecole, as they called it, to the huge delight of an 
immense and ever-increasing crowd, and the disgust 
of all truly respectable men. 

They also insisted on Little Billee's walking be- 
tween them, arm in arm, and talking to them in Eng- 
lish whenever they saw coming towards them a re- 
spectable Enghsh family with daughters. It was the 
dragoon's delight to get himself stared at by fair 
daughters of Albion for speaking as good English 
as themselves — a rare accomplishment in a French 
trooper — and Zouzou's happiness to be thought Eng- 
lish too, though the only English he knew was the 
phrase " I will not ! I will not !" which he had picked 
up in the Crimea, and repeated over and over again 
when he came within ear-shot of a pretty English girl. 

Little Billee was not happy in these circumstances. 
lie was no snob. But he was a respectably brought- 
up young Briton of the higher middle class, and it was 
not quite pleasant for him to be seen (by fair country- 
women of his own) walking arm in arm on a Sunday 
afternoon with a couple of French private soldiers, and 
uncommonly rowdy ones at that. 

Later, they came back to Paris together on the top 




' I WILL NOT ! I WILL NOT !' " 



152 

of an omnibus, among a very proletarian crowd, and 
there the two facetious warriors immediately made 
themselves pleasant all round and became very popu- 
lar, especially with the women and children; but not, 
I regret to say, through the propriety, refinement, and 
discretion of their behavior. Little Billee resolved 
that he would not go a -pleasuring with them any 
. more. 

However, they stuck to him through thick and thin, 
and insisted on escorting him all the way back to the 
quartier latin, by the Pont de la Concorde and the 
Rue de Lille in the Faubourg St. Germain. 

Little Billee loved the Faubourg St. Germain, es- 
pecially the Rue de Lille. He was fond of gazing at 
the magnificent old mansions, the " hotels " of the old 
French noblesse, or rather the outside walls thereof, 
the grand sculptured portals with the armorial bear- 
ings and the splendid old historic names above them — 
Hotel de This, Hotel de That, Rohan-Chabot, Mont- 
morency, La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, La Tour d'Au- 
vergne. 

He would forget himself in romantic dreams of past 
and forgotten French chivalry which these glorious 
names called up ; for he knew a little of French his- 
tory, loving to read Froissart and Saint-Simon and the 
genial Brantome. 

Halting opposite one of the finest and oldest of all 
these gateways, his especial favorite, labelled " Hotel 
de la Rochemartel" in letters of faded gold over a 
ducal coronet and a huge escutcheon of stone, he be- 
gan to descant upon its architectural beauties and 
noble proportions to 1' Zouzou. 



153 



^^ Parbleu P^ said V Zouzou, ^^conmi, farceur! 
why, I was horn there, on the 6th of March, 1834, 
at 5.30 in the morning. Lucky day for France — 
hein r 

" Born there ? what do you mean — in the porter's 
lodge ?" 

At this juncture the two great gates rolled back, a 
liveried Suisse appeared, and an open carriage and 

pair came out, and in 

--^^ 

ladies and a younger 

one. 

:/7: To Little Billee's 




DODOR IN HIS GLORT 



154 

indignation, the two incorrigible warriors made the 

military salute, and the three ladies bowed stiffly and 

gravely. 
And then (to Little Billee's horror this time) one of 

them happened to look back, and Zouzou actually 

kissed his hand to her. 

" Do you know that lady ?" asked Little Billee, very 

sternly. 

" Parhleu ! sije la connais ! Why, it's my mother ! 

Isn't she nice ? She's rather cross with me just now." 
" Your mother ! Why, what do you mean ? What 

on earth would your mother be doing in that big car- 
riage and at that big house ?" 
" Parhleu, farceur ! She lives there !" 
'-''Lives there! Why, who and what is she, your 

mother ?" 

" The Duchesse de la Eochemartel, parlleu ! and 

that's my sister; and that's my aunt, Princess de 

Chevagne - Banff remont ! She's the '• imtronne ' of 

that chiG equipage. She's a millionaire, my aunt 

Chevagne !" 

" Well, I never ! What's your name, then ?" 

" Oh, my name ! Hang it — let me see ! Well — 

Gontran — Xavier — Francois — Marie — Joseph d' Am- 

aury — Brissac de Roncesvaulx de la Rochemartel-Bois- 

segur, at your service !" 

" Quite correct !" said Dodor ; " V enfant dit vrai .^" 
" Well — I — never ! And what's your name, Dodor ?" 
" Oh ! I'm only a humble individual, and answer to 

the one-horse name of Theodore Rigolot de Lafarce. 

But Zouzou's an awful swell, you know — his brother's 

the Duke !" 




HOTKL DE LA ROCHEMARTEL 



156 

Little Billee was no snob. But he was a respectably 
brought-up young Briton of the higher middle class, 
and these revelations, which he could not but believe, 
astounded him so that he could hardly speak. Much 
as he flattered himself that he scorned the bloated 
aristocracy, titles are titles — even French titles! — 
and when it comes to dukes and princesses who live in 
houses like the Hotel de la Rochemartel . . . ! 

It's enough to take a respectably brought-up young 
Briton's breath away ! 

When he saw TalBfy that evening, he exclaimed : " I 
say, Zouzou's mother's a duchess !" 

" Yes — the Duchesse de la Rochemartel-Boissegur." 

" You never told me !" 

" You never asked me. It's one of the greatest 
names in France. They're very poor, I believe." 

" Poor ! You should see the house they live in !" 

" I've been there, to dinner ; and the dinner wasn't 
very good. They let a great part of it, and live most- 
ly in the country. The Duke is Zouzou's brother; 
very unlike Zouzou; he's consumptive and unmarried, 
and the most respectable man in Paris. Zouzou will 
be the Duke some day." 

" And Dodor — he's a swell, too, I suppose — he says 
he's de something or other !" 

" Yes — Rigolot de Lafarce. I've no doubt he de- 
scends from the Crusaders, too ; the name seems to 
favor it, anyhow ; and such lots of them do in this 
country. His mother was English, and bore the 
worthy name of Brown, He was at school in Eng- 
. land ; that's why he speaks English so well — and be- 
haves so badly, perhaps ! He's got a very beautiful 



157 

sister, married to a man in the 60th Rifles — Jack 
Reeve, a son of Lord Reevely's ; a selfish sort of chap. 
I don't suppose he gets on very well with his brother- 
in-law. Poor Dodor! His sister's about the only 
living thing he cares for — except Zouzou." 

I wonder if the bland and genial Monsieur Theodore 
— " notre Sieur Theodore " — now junior partner in the 
great haberdashery firm of " Passefil et Rigolot," on 
the Boulevard des Capucines, and a pillar of the Eng- 
lish chapel in the Rue Marboeuf, is very hard on his 
empl(Jyes and employees if they are a little late at 
their counters on a Monday morning ? 

I wonder if that stuck-up, stingy, stodgy, com- 
munard-shooting, church -going, time-serving, place- 
hunting, pious-eyed, pompous old prig, martinet, and 
philistine. Monsieur le Marechal-Duc de la Roche- 
martel - Boissegur, ever tells Madame la Marechale- 
Duchesse {nee Hunks, of Chicago) how once upon a 
time Dodor and he — 

We will tell no tales out of school. 

The present scribe is no snob. He is a respectably 
brought-up old Briton of the higher middle-class — at 
least, he flatters himself so. And he writes for just 
such old Philistines as himself, who date from a time 
when titles were not thought so cheap as to-day. 
Alas ! all reverence for all that is high and time-hon- 
ored and beautiful seems at a discount. 

So he has kept his blackguard ducal Zouave for the 
bouquet of this little show — the final honne houche in 
his bohemian menu — that he may make it palatable 
to those who only look upon the good old quartier 



158 

latin (now no more to speak of) as a very low, com- 
mon, vulgar quarter indeed, deservedly swept away, 
where misters the students (shocking bounders and 
cads) had nothing better to do, day and night, than 
mount up to a horrid place called the thatched house 
— la chaumiere — 

" Pour y danser le cancan 

Ou le Robert Macaire — 

Tou jours — tou j ours — toujours— 

La nuit comme le jour , . . 

Et youp ! youp ! youp ! 
Tra la la la la . . . la la la 1" 



Christmas was drawing near. 

There were days when the whole quartier latin 
would veil its iniquities under fogs almost worthy of 
the Thames Valley between London Bridge and West- 
minster, and out of the studio window the prospect 
was a dreary blank. No morgue ! no towers of Notre 
Dame ! not even the chimney-pots over the way — not 
even the little mediaeval toy turret at the corner of 
the Rue Yieille des Mauvais Ladres, Little Billee's de- 
light ! 

The stove had to be crammed till its sides grew a 
dull deep red before one's fingers could hold a brush 
or squeeze a bladder ; one had to box or fence at nine 
in the morning, that one might recover from the cold 
bath, and get warm for the rest of the day ! 

Taffy and the Laird grew pensive and dreamy, 
childUke and bland ; and when they talked it was gen- 



159 

erally about Christmas at home in merry England and 
the distant land of cakes, and how good it was to be 
there at such a time — hunting, shooting, curling, and 
endless carouse ! 

It was Ho! for the jolly West Riding, and Hey! 
for the bonnets of Bonnie Dundee, till they grew quite 
homesick, and wanted to start by the very next 
train. 

They didn't do anything so foolish. They wrote 
over to friends in London for the biggest turkey, the 
biggest plum - pudding, that could be got for love or 
money, with mince-pies, and holly and mistletoe, and 
sturdy, short, thick English sausages, half a Stilton 
cheese, and a sirloin of beef — two sirloins, in case one 
should not be enough. 

For they meant to have a Homeric feast in the 
studio on Christmas Day — Taffy, the Laird, and Little 
Billee — and invite all the delightful chums I have been 
trying to describe ; and that is just why I tried to de- 
scribe them — Durien, Vincent, Antony, Lorrimer, Car- 
negie, Petrolicoconose, 1' Zouzou, and Dodor ! 

The cooking and waiting should be done by Trilby, 
her friend Angele Boisse, M. et Mme. Yinard, and 
such little Vinards as could be trusted with glass and 
crockery and mince-pies ; and if that was not enough, 
they would also cook themselves and wait upon each 
other. 

When dinner should be over, supper was to follow 
with scarcely any interval to speak of ; and to partake 
of this other guests should be bidden — Svengall and 
Gecko, and perhaps one or two more. No ladies ! 

For, as the unsusceptible Laird expressed it, in the 



160 

language of a gillie he had once met at a servants' 
dance in a Highland country-house, " Them wimmen 
spiles the ball !" 

Elaborate cards of invitation were sent out, in the 
designing and ornamentation of which the Laird and 
Taffy exhausted all their fancy (Little Billee had no 
time). 

Wines and spirits and English beers were procured 
at great cost from M. E. Delevingne's, in the Rue St. 
Honore, and liqueurs of every description — chartreuse, 
cura^oa, ratafia de cassis, and anisette ; no expense 
was spared. 

Also, truffled galantines of turkey, tongues, hams, 
rillettes de Tours, pates de foie gras, " f romage d'ltalie " 
(which has nothing to do with cheese), saucissons 
d' Aries et de L^^on, with and without garlic, cold jel- 
lies peppery and salt — everything that French char- 
cutiers and their wives can make out of French pigs, 
or any other animal whatever, beast, bird, or fowl 
(even cats and rats), for the supper ; and sweet jellies, 
and cakes, and sweetmeats, and confections of all 
kinds, from the famous pastry-cook at the corner of 
the Rue Castiglione. 

Mouths went watering all day long in joyful antici- 
pation. They water somewhat sadly now at the mere 
remembrance of these delicious things— the mere im- 
mediate sight or scent of which in these degenerate 
latter days would no longer avail to promote any such 
delectable secretion. Helas ! ahimc ! ach weh ! ay de 
mi ! eheu ! ol'/iot — in point of fact, alas ! 

That is the very exclamation I wanted. 

Christmas Eve came round. The pieces of resistance 




CHRISTMAS EVE 



163 

and plum-pudding and mince-pies had not yet arrived 
from London — but there was plenty of time. 

Les trois Angliches dined at le pere Trin's, as usual, 
and played billiards and dorainos at the Cafe du Lux- 
embourg, and possessed their souls in patience till it 
was time to go and hear the midnight mass at the 
Madeline, where Roucouly, the great barytone of the 
Opera Comique, was retained to sing Adam's famous 
Noel. 

The whole quartier seemed alive with the reveillon. 
It was a clear, frosty night, with a splendid moon just 
past the full, and most exhilarating w^as the walk 
along the quays on the Rive Gauche, over the Pont de 
la Concorde and across the Place thereof, and up the 
thronged Rue de la Madeleine to the massive Par- 
thenaic place of worship that always has such a pagan, 
worldly look of smug and prosperous modernity. 

They struggled manfully, and found standing and 
kneeling room among that fervent crowd, and heard 
the impressive service with mixed feelings, as became 
true Britons of very advanced liberal and religious 
opinions ; not with the unmixed contempt of the proper 
British Orthodox (who were there in full force, one 
may be sure). 

But their susceptible hearts soon melted at the beau- 
tiful music, and in mere sensuous attendrissement they 
were quickly in unison with all the rest. 

For as the clock struck twelve out pealed the organ, 
and up rose the finest voice in France : 

" Minuit, Chretiens ! c'est I'heure solennelle 
Oil THomme-Dieu descendit iiarmi nous !" 



163 



And a wave of religious emotion rolled over Little 
Billee and submerged him ; swept him off his little 
legs, swept him out of his little self, drowned him in 
a great seething surge of love — love of his kind, love 
of love, love of life, love of death, love of all that is 




" ' ALLONS GLYCERE ! RO0GIS MON VERRE. 



and ever was and ever will be — a very large order 
indeed, even for Little Billee. 

And it seemed to him that he stretched out his 
arms for love to one figure especially beloved beyond 



164 

all the rest — one figure erect on high with arms out- 
stretched to him, in more than common fellow ship of 
need ; not the sorrowful figure crowned with thorns, 
for it was in the likeness of a woman ; but never that 
of the Virgin Mother of Our Lord. 

It was Trilby, Trilby, Trilby ! a poor fallen sinner 
and waif all but lost amid the scum of the most cor- 
rupt city on earth. Trilby weak and mortal like him- 
self, and in woful want of pardon ! and in her gray 
dovelike eyes he saw the shining of so great a love 
that he was abashed ; for well he knew that all that 
love was his, and would be his forever, come what 
would or could. 

"Peuple, debout ! Chante ta delivrance ! 
Noel ! Noel ! Void le Bedempteur !" 

So sang and rang and pealed and echoed the big, 
deep, metallic barytone bass — above the organ, above 
the incense, above everything else in the world — till 
the very universe seemed to shake 'with the rolling 
thunder of that great message of love and forgiveness ! 

Thus at least felt Little Billee, whose way it was to 
magnify and exaggerate all things under the subtle 
stimulus of sound, and the singing human voice had 
especially strange power to penetrate into his inmost 
depths — even the voice of man ! 

And what voice but the deepest and gravest and 
grandest there is can give worthy utterance to such 
a message as that, the epitome, the abstract, the very 
essence of all collective humanity's wisdom at its 
best!. 



165 

Little Billee reached the Hotel Corneille that night 
in a very exalted frame of mind indeed, the loftiest, 
lowliest mood of all. 

Now see what sport we are of trivial, base, ignoble 
earthly things ! 

Sitting on the door-step and smoking two cigars at 
once he found Ribot, one of his fellow-lodgers, whose 
room was just under his own. Ribot was so tipsy 
that he could not ring. But he could still sing, and 
did so at the top of his voice. It was not the Noel 
of Adam that he sang, tie had not spent his reveil- 
lon in any church. 

With the help of a sleepy waiter, Little Billee got 
the bacchanalian into his room and lit his candle for 
him, and, disengaging himself from his maudhn em- 
braces, left him to wallow in solitude. 

As he lay awake in his bed, trying to recall the 
deep and high emotions of the evening, he heard the 
tipsy hog below tumbling about his room and still try- 
ing to sing his senseless ditty : 

" AUons, Glycere ! 

Rougis mon verre 
Du jus divin dont mon coeur est, toujours jaloux . . . 

Et puis a table, 

Bacchante aimable ! 
Enivrons-nous (liic) Les g-glougloux sont des rendezvous 1" . . . 

Then the song ceased for a while, and soon there 
were other sounds, as on a Channel steamer. Glou- 
gloux indeed ! 

Then the fear arose in Little Billee's mind lest the 
drunken beast should set fire to his bedroom cur- 



m 

tains. All heavenly visions were chased away for the 
night. . . . 

Our hero, half -crazed with fear, disgust, and irri- 
tation, lay wide awake, his nostrils on the watch for 
the smell of burning chintz or muslin, and wondered 
how an educated man — for Ribot was a law-student — 
could ever make such a filthy beast of himself as that ! 
It was a scandal — a disgrace ; it was not to be borne ; 
there should be no forgiveness for such as Ribot — not 
even on Christmas Day ! He would complain to 
Madame Paul, the patronne ; he would have Ribot 
turned out into the street ; he would leave the ho- 
tel himself the very next morning ! At last he fell 
asleep, thinking of all he would do ; and thus, ridic- 
ulously and ignominiously for Little Billee, ended the 
reveillon. 

Next morning he complained to Madame Paul ; and 
though he did not give her warning, nor even insist on 
the expulsion of Ribot (who, as he heard with a hard 
heart, was "bien malade ce matin"), he expressed 
himself very severely on the conduct of that gentle- 
man, and on the dangers from fire that might arise 
from a tipsy man being trusted alone in a small bed- 
room with chintz curtains and a lighted candle. If it 
hadn't been for himself, he told her, Ribot would have 
slept on the door-step, and serve him right ! He 
was really grand in his virtuous indignation, in spite 
of his imperfect French ; and Madame Paul was deep- 
ly contrite for her peccant lodger, and profuse in her 
apologies; and Little Billee began his twenty -first 
Christmas Day like a Pharisee, thanking his star that 
he was not as Ribot ! 



Ipart jfourtb 

"Feliclte passee 
Qui ne peux revenir, 
Tourraent de ma pensee, 
Que n'ay-je, en te perdant, perdu le souvenir !" 

Mid-day had struck. The expected hamper had not 
turned up in the Place St. Anatole des Arts. 

All Madame Vinard's kitchen battery was in readi- 
ness ; Trilby and Madame Angele Boisse were in the 
studio, their sleeves turned up, and ready to begin. 

At twelve the trois Angliches and the two fair 
blanchisseuses sat down to lunch in a very anxious 
frame of mind, and finished a pate de foie gras and 
two bottles of Burgundy between them, such was their 
disquietude. 

The guests had been invited for six o'clock. 

Most elaborately they laid the cloth on the table 
they had borrowed from the Hotel de Seine, and set- 
tled who was to sit next to Avhom, and then unsettled 
it, and quarrelled over it — Trilby, as was her wont in 
such matters, assuming an authority that did not right- 
ly belong to her, and of course getting her own way 
in the end. 

And that, as the Laird remarked, was her confound- 
ed Trilbyness. 

Two o'clock — three — four — but no hamper ! Dark- 
ness had almost set in. It was simply maddening. 




They knelt on the 
divan, with their el- 
bows on the window- 
sill, and watched the 
street lamps popping 
into life along the 
quays — and looked out 
soDVENiR through the gathering 

dusk for the van from 

the Chemin de Fer du Nord — and gloomily thought 

of the Morgue, which they could still make out across 

the river. 

At length the Laird and Trilby went off in a cab to 

the station — a long drive — and, lo ! before they came 

back the long-expected hamper arrived, at six o'clock. 
And with it Durien, Vincent, Antony, Lorrimer, 

Carnegie, Petrolicoconose, Dodor, and 1' Zouzou — the 

last two in uniform, as usual. 

And suddenly the studio, which had been so silent, 

dark, and dull, with Taffy and Little Billee sitting 



169 

hopeless and despondent round the stove, became a 
scene of the noisiest, busiest, and cheerfulest anima- 
tion. The three big lamps were lit, and all the Chi- 
nese lanterns. The pieces of resistance and the pud- 
ding were whisked off by Trilby, Angele, and Madame 
Vinard to other regions — the porter's lodge and Duri- 
en's studio (which had been lent for the purpose) ; and 
every one was pressed into the preparations for the 
banquet. There was plenty for idle hands to do. 
Sausages to be fried for the turkey, stuffing made, 
and sauces, salads mixed, and punch — holly hung in 
festoons all round and about — a thousand things. 
Everybody was so clever and good-humored that no- 
body got in anybody's way — not even Carnegie, who 
was in evening dress (to the Laird's delight). So they 
made him do the scullion's work — cleaning, rinsing, 
peeling, etc. 

The cooking of the dinner was almost better fun 
than the eating of it. And though there were so 
many cooks, not even the broth was spoiled (cocka- 
leekie, from a receipt of the Laird's). 

It was ten o'clock before they sat down to that 
most memorable repast. 

Zouzou and Dodor, who had been the most useful 
and energetic of all its cooks, apparently quite forgot 
they were due at their respective barracks at that very 
moment : they had only been able to obtain " la per- 
mission de dix heures." If they remembered it, the 
certainty that next day Zouzou would be reduced to 
the ranks for the fifth time, and Dodor confined to 
his barracks for a month, did not trouble them in the 
least. 



170 

The waiting was as good as the cooking. The hand- 
some, quick, authoritative Madame Vinard was in a 
dozen places at once, and openly prompted, rebuked, 
and ballyragged her husband into a proper smart- 
ness. The pretty little Madame Angele moved about 
as deftly and as quietly as a mouse ; which of course 
did not prevent them botli from genially joining in 
the general conversation whenever it wandered into 
French. 

Trilby, tall, graceful, and stately, and also swift of 
action, though more like Juno or Diana than Hebe, 
devoted herself more especially to her own particular 
favorites — Durien, Taffy, the Laird, Little Billee — and 
Dodor and Zouzou, whom she loved, and tutoye'd en 
bonne camarade as she served them with all there was 
of the choicest. 

The two little Vinards did their little best — they 
scrupulously respected the mince-pies, and only broke 
two bottles of oil and one of Harvey sauce, which 
made their mother furious. To console them, the 
Laird took one of them on each knee and gave them 
of his share of plum-pudding and many other unac- 
customed good things, so bad for their little French 
tumtums. 

The genteel Carnegie had never been at such a queer 
scene in his life. It opened his mind — and Dodor and 
Zouzou, between whom he sat (the Laird thought it 
would do him good to sit between a private soldier 
and a humble corporal), taught him more French 
than he had learned during the three months he had 
spent in Paris. It was a specialty of theirs. It was 
more colloquial than what is generally used in dip- 



171 

lomatic circles, and stuck longer in the memory ; but 
it hasn't interfered with his preferment in the Church. 

He quite unbent. He was the first to volunteer a 
song (without being asked) when the pipes and cigars 
were lit, and after the usual toasts had been drunk — 
her Majesty's health, Tennyson, Thackeray, and Dick- 
ens ; and John Leech. 

He sang, with a very cracked and rather hiccupy 
voice, his only song (it seems) — an English one, of 
which the burden, he explained, was French: 

' ' Veeverler veeverler veevei'Ier vee 
Veeverler companyee !" 

And Zouzou and Dodor complimented him so pro- 
fusely on his French accent that he was with difficulty 
prevented from singing it all over again. 

Then everybody sang in rotation. 

The Laird, with a capital barytone, sang 

"Hie diddle Dee for tlie Lowhiuds low," 

which was encored. 

Little Billee sang " Little Billee." 
Vincent sang 

"Old Joe kicking up behind and afore, 
And the yaller gal a-kickiug up behind old Joe." 

A capital song, with words of quite a masterly scan- 
sion. 

Antony sang " Le Sire de Framboisy." Enthusias- 
tic encore. 



172 

Lorrimer, inspired no doubt by the occasion, sang 
the " Hallelujah Chorus," and accompanied himself on 
the piano, but failed to obtain an encore. 

Durien sang 

"Plaisir d'amour ne dure qu'un moment; 
Chagrin d'amour dure toute la vie . , ." 

It was his favorite song, and one of the beautiful songs 
of the world, and he sang it very well — and it became 
popular in the quartier latin ever after. 

The Greek couldn't sing, and ver}'- wisely didn't. 

Zouzou sang capitally a capital song in praise of " le 
vin a quat' sous !" 

Taffy, in a voice like a high wind (and with a very 
good imitation of the Yorkshire brogue), sang a Som- 
ersetshire hunting-ditty, ending : 

"Of this 'ere song should I be axed the reason for to show, 
I don't, exactly know, I don't exactly know ! 
But all my fancy dwells upon Nancy, 
And I sing Tally-ho !" 

It is a quite superexcellent ditty, and haunts my 
memory to this day ; and one felt sure that Nanc}^ 
was a dear and a sweet, wherever she lived, and when. 
So Tatfy was encored twice — once for her sake, once 
for his own. 

And finally, to the surprise of all, the bold dragoon 
sang (in English) " My Sister Dear," out of Masa7iiello, 
with such pathos, and in a voice so sweet and high 
and well in tune, that his audience felt almost w^eepy 
in the midst of their jollification, and grew quite sen- 



174 

timental, as Englishmen abroad are apt to do when 
they are rather tipsy and hear pretty music, and think 
of their dear sisters across the sea, or their friends' dear 
sisters. 

Madame Yinard interrupted her Christmas dinner 
on the model-throne to listen, and wept and wiped her 
eyes quite openly, and remarked to Madame Boisse, 
who stood modestly close by : " II est gentil tout plein, 
ce dragon ! Mon Dieu ! comme il chante bien ! II est 
Angliche aussi, il parait. lis sont joliment bien eleves, 
tons ces Angliches — tons plus gentils les uns que les 
autres! et quant a Monsieur Litrebili, on lui donnerait 
le bon Dieu sans confession !" 

And Madame Boisse agreed. 

Then Svengali and Gecko came, and the table had 
to be laid and decorated anew, for it was supper- 
time. 

Supper was even jollier than dinner, which had taken 
off the keen edge of the appetites, so that every one 
talked at once — the true test of a successful supper — 
except when Antony told some of his experiences of 
bohemia ; for instance, how, after staying at home all 
day for a month to avoid his creditors, he became reck- 
less one Sunday morning, and went to the Bains De- 
ligny, and jumped into a deep part by mistake, and 
was saved from a watery grave by a bold swimmer, 
who turned out to be his boot-maker, Satory, to whom 
he owed sixty francs — of all his duns the one he dread- 
ed the most — and who didn't let him go in a hurry. 

Whereupon Svengali remarked that he also owed six- 
ty francs to Satory — " Mais comme che ne me baigne 
chamais, che n'ai rien a craindre !" 



175 



Whereupon there was such a laugh that Svengali 
felt he had scored off Antony at last and had a prettier 
wit. He flattered himself that he'd got the laugh of 
Antony this time. 

And after supper Svengali and Gecko made such 
lovely music that everybody was sobered and athirst 
again, and the punch-bowl, wreathed with holly and 
mistletoe, was placed in the middle of the table, and 
clean glasses set all round it. 




A DUCAL FRENCH FIGHTINQ-COCK 



Then Dodor and 1' Zouzou stood up to dance with 
Trilby and Madame Angele, and excuted a series of 
cancan steps, which, though they were so inimitably 
droll that they had each and all to be encored, were 
such that not one of them need have brought the blush 
of shame to the cheek of modesty. 



176 

Then the Laird danced a sword-dance over two T 
squares and broke them both. And Taffy, baring his 
mighty arms to the admiring gaze of all, did dumb- 
bell exercises, with Little Billee for a dumb-bell, and all 
but dropped him into the punch-bowl; and tried to cut 
a pewter ladle in two with Dodor's sabre, and sent it 
through the window; and this made him cross, so that 
he abused French sabres, and said they were made of 
worse pewter than even French ladles ; and the Laird 
sententiously opined that they managed these things 
better in England, and winked at Little Billee. 

Then they played at "cock- fighting," with their 
wrists tied across their shins, and a broomstick thrust 
in between ; thus manacled, you are placed opposite 
your antagonist, and try to upset him with your feet, 
and he you. It is a very good game. The cuirassier 
and the Zouave playing at this got so angry, and 
were so irresistibly funny a sight, that the shouts of 
laughter could be heard on the other side of the river, 
ISO that a sergent de ville came in and civilly request- 
ed them not to make so much noise. They were dis- 
turbing the whole quartier, he said, and there was 
quite a " rassemblement " outside. So the}^ made him 
tipsy, and also another policeman, who came to look 
after his comrade, and yet another; and these guardi- 
ans of the peace of Paris were trussed and made to 
play at cock-fighting, and were still funnier than the 
two soldiers, and laughed louder and made more noise 
than any one else, so that Madame Vinard had to re- 
monstrate with them; till they got too tipsy to speak, 
and fell fast asleep, and were laid next to each other 
behind the stove. 



177 

The j?^ de siecle reader, disgusted at the thought of 
such an orgy as I have been trying to describe, must 
remember that it happened in the fifties, when men 
calhng themselves gentlemen, and being called so, 
still v/renched off door-knockers and came back drunk 
from the Derby, and even drank too much after 
dinner before joining the ladies, as is all duly chroni- 
cled and set down in John Leech's immortal pictures 
of life and character out of Punch. 

Then M. and Mme. Vinard and Trilby and An- 
gele Boisse bade the company good-night. Trilby be- 
ing: the last of them to leave. 

Little Billee took her to the top of the staircase, 
and there he said to her : 

" Trilby, I have asked you nineteen times, and you 
have refused. Trilby, once more, on Christmas night, 
for the twentieth i\mQ—will you marry me ? If not, 
I leave Paris to-morrow morning, and never come 
back. I swear it on my word of honor !" 

Trilby turned very pale, and leaned her back against 
the wall, and covered her face with her hands. 

Little Billee pulled them away. 

" Answer me, Trilby !" 

"God forgive me, yes T said Trilby, and she ran 
down-stairs, weeping. 

It was now very late. 

It soon became evident that Little Billee was in 
extraordinary high spirits— in an abnormal state of 
excitement. 

He challenged Svengali to spar, and made his nose 

12 



178 

bleed, and frightened him out of his sardonic wits. 
He performed wonderful and quite unsuspected feats 
of strength. He swore eternal friendship to Dodor 
and Zouzou, and filled their glasses again and again, 
and also (in his innocence) his own, and trinqued with 
them many times running. They were the last to 
leave (except the three helpless policemen) ; and at 
about five or six in the morning, to his surprise, he 
found himself walking between Dodor and Zouzou by 
a late windy moonlight in the Rue Vieille des JVIau- 
vais Ladres, now on one side of the frozen gutter, now 
on the other, now in the middle of it, stopping them 
now and then to tell them how jolly they were and 
how dearly he loved them. 

Presently his hat flew away, and went rolling and 
skipping and bounding up the narrow street, and they 
discovered that as soon as they let each other go to 
run after it, they all three sat down. 

So Dodor and Little Billee remained sitting, with 
their arms round each other's necks and their feet in 
the gutter, while Zouzou went after the hat on all 
fours, and caught it, and brought it back in his mouth 
like a tipsy retriever. Little Billee wept for sheer 
love and gratitude, and called him a ctiry/iatide (in 
English), and laughed loudly at his own wit, which 
was quite thrown away on Zouzou ! " No man ever 
had such dear, dear frenge! no man ever was 
s'happy !" 

After sitting for a while in love and amity, they 
managed to get up on their feet again, each helping 
the other; and in some never-to-be-remembered way 
they reached the Hotel Corneille. 




♦"answer me, trilby I" 



180 



There they sat little Billee on the door-step and 
rang the bell, and seeing some one coming up the 
Place de TOdeon, and fearing he might be a sergent 
de ville, they bid Little Billee a most affectionate but 
hasty farewell, kissing him on both cheeks in French 
fashion, and contriving to get themselves round the 
corner and out of sight. 

Little Billee tried to sino: Zouzou's drinkino:-sono; : 



"Quoi de plus doux 
Que les glougloux — 
Les glougloux du vin a quat' sous 



The stranger came up. Fortunately, it was no ser- 
gent de ville, but Ribot, just back from a Christmas- 
tree and a little family dance at his aunt's, Madame 

Kolb (the Alsacian bank- 
er's wife, in the Rue de 
la Chaussee d'Antin). 




A CARYff^riDE 



m 

Next morning poor Little Biliee was dreadfully ill. 

He had passed a terrible night. His bed had 
heaved like the ocean, with oceanic results. He had 
forgotten to put out his candle, but fortunately Ribot 
had blown it out for him, after putting him to bed 
and tucking him up like a real good Samaritan. 

And next morning, when Madame Paul brought 
him a cup of tisane de chiendent (which does not hap- 
pen to mean a hair of the dog that bit him), she was 
kind, but very severe on the dangers and disgrace of 
intoxication, and talked to him like a mother. 

"If it had not been for kind Monsieur Ribot" (she 
told him), " the door-step would have been your por- 
tion ; and who could say you didn't deserve it? And 
then think of the dangers of fire from a tipsy man all 
alone in a small bedroom with chintz curtains and a 
lighted candle !" 

"liibot was kind enough to blow out my candle," 
said Little Biliee, humbly. 

" Ah, Dame !" said Madame Paul, Avith much mean- 
ing — " au moins il a hon cceitr, Monsieur Ribot !'' 

And the crudest sting of all was when the good- 
natured and incorrigibly festive Ribot came and sat 
by his bedside, and was kind and tendei'ly sympa- 
thetic, and got him a pick-me-up from the chemist's 
(unbeknown to Madame Paul). 

"Credieu! vous vous etes cranement bien amuse, 
hier soir ! quelle bosse, hein ! je parie que c'etait plus 
(Irule que chez ma tante Kolb !" 

All of which, of course, it is unnecessary to trans- 
late ; except, perhaps, the word " bosse," which stands 
for "noce," which stands for a "jolly good spree." 



182 

In all his innocent little life Little Billee had never 
dreamed of such humiliation as this — such ignominious 
depths of shame and misery and remorse! lie did 
not care to live. He had but one longing : that Tril- 
by, dear Trilby, kind Trilby, would come and pillow 
his head on her beautiful white English bosom, and 
lay her soft, cool, tender hand on his aching brow, and 
there let him go to sleep, and sleeping, die ! 

He slept and slept, with no better rest for his 
aching brow than the pillow of his bed in the Hotel 
Corneille, and failed to die this time. And when, after 
some forty-eight hours or so, he had quite slept off the 
fumes of that memorable Christmas debauch, he found 
that a sad thing had liappened to him, and a strange ! 

It was as though a tarnishing breath had swept 
over the reminiscent mirror of his mind and left a lit- 
tle film behind it, so that no past thing he wished to 
see therein was reflected with quite the old pristine 
clearness. As though the keen, quick, razorlike edge 
of his power to reach and re-evoke the by-gone charm 
and glamour and essence of things had been blunted 
and coarsened. As though the bloom of that special 
joy, the gift he unconsciously had of recalling past 
emotions and sensations and situations, and making 
them actual once more by a mere effort of the will, 
had been brushed away. 

And he never recovered the full use of that most 
precious faculty, the boon of j^outh and happy child- 
hood, and which he had once possessed, without know- 
ing it, in such singular and exceptional completeness. 
He was to lose other precious faculties of his over-rich 
and complex nature — to be pruned and clipped and 



183 



thinned — that his one supreme faculty of painting 
might have elbow-room to reach its fullest, or else you 
would never have seen the wood for the trees (or vice 
versa — which is it ?). 




*"les glougloux du tin a Q0at' sous. . . .'" 



On New-year's Day Taffy and the Laird were at 
their work in the studio, when there was a knock at 
the door, and Monsieur Yinard, cap in hand, respect- 
fully introduced a pair of visitors, an English lady 
and gentleman. 



184 

The gentleman was a clergyman, small, thin, round- 
shouldered, with a long neck ; weak-eyed and dryly 
polite. The lady was middle-aged, though still young 
looking; very pretty, with gray hair; very well 
dressed ; very small, full of nerv'^ous energy, with 
tiny hands and feet. It was Little Billee's mother; 
and the clergyman, the Rev. Thomas Bagot, was her 
brother-in-law. 

Their faces were full of trouble — so much so that 
the two painters did not even apologize for the care- 
lessness of their attire, or for the odor of tobacco that 
filled the room. Little Billee's mother recognized the 
two painters at a glance, from the sketches and descrip- 
tions of which her son's letters were always full. 

They all sat down. 

After a moment's embarrassed silence, Mrs. Bagot 
exclaimed, addressing Taffy : " Mr. Wynne, we are in 
terrible distress of mind, I don't know if my son has 
told you, but on Christmas Day he engaged himself to 
be married !" 

"To — be — married r exclaimed Taffy and the 
Laird, for whom this was news indeed. 

"Yes — to be married to a Miss Trilby O'Ferrall, 
who, from what he implies, is in quite a different po- 
sition in life to himself. Do you know the lady, Mr. 
Wynne?" 

" Oh yes ! I know her very well indeed ; we all 
know her." 

" Is she English ?" 

" She's an English subject, I believe." 

" Is she a Protestant or a Roman Catholic ?" in- 
quired the clergyman. 



185 

" A — a — upon my word, I reallj'' don't know !" 

"You know her very well indeed, and you donH — 
hnow — that^ Mr. Wynne !" exclaimed Mr. Bagot. 

"Is she a lady^ Mr. "Wynne?" asked Mrs. Bagot, 
somewhat impatiently, as if that were a much more 
important matter. 

By this time the Laird had managed to basely de- 
sert his friend ; had got himself into his bedroom, 
and from thence, by another door, into the street and 
away. 

" A lady ?" said Taffy ; "a — it so much depends 
upon Avhat that word exactly means, you know ; things 
are so — a — so different here. Her father was a gentle- 
man, I believe — a fellow of Trinity, Cambridge — and 
a clergyman, if that means anything ! ... he was unfort- 
unate and all that — a — intemperate, I fear, and not 
successful in life. He has been dead six or seven 
years." 

" And her mother?" 

" I really know very little about her mother, except 
that she was very handsome, I believe, and of inferior 
social rank to her husband. She's also dead ; she died 
soon after him." 

" What is the young lady, then ? An English gov- 
erness, or something of that sort?" 

"Oh, no, no — a — nothing of that sort," said Taffy 
(and inwardly, " You coward — you cad of a Scotch 
thief of a sneak of a Laird — to leave all this to me !"). 

" What ? Has she independent means of her own, 
then ?" 

" A — not that I know of ; I should even say, decid- 
edly not !" 



186 

" What is she, then ? She's at least respectable, I 
hope !" 

"At present she's a — a blanchisseuse de fin — that is 
considered respectable here," 

" Why, that's a washer-woman, isn't it ?" 

" Well — rather better than that, perhaps — de Jin, 
you know ! — things are so difTerent in Paris ! I don't 
think you'd say she was very much like a washer- 
woman — to look at !" 

" Is she so good-looking, then T 

-' Oh yes ; extremely so. You may well say that — 
very beautiful, indeed — about that, at least, there is 
no doubt whatever !" 

" And of unblemished character ?" 

Taffy, red and perspiring as if he were going through 
his Indian-club exercise, was silent — and his face ex- 
pressed a miserable perplexity. But nothing could 
equal the anxious misery of those two maternal eyes, 
so wistfully fixed on his. 

After some seconds of a most painful stillness, the 
hidy said, "Can't you — oh, can^t you give me an an- 
swer, Mr. Wynne?" 

" Oh, Mrs. Bagot, you have placed me in a ter- 
rible position ! I — I love your son just as if he were 
my own brother! This engagement is a complete 
surprise to me — a most painful surprise ! I'd thought 
of many possible things, but never of that/ 1 can- 
not — I really mtist not conceal from 3^ou that it 
Avould be an unfortunate marriage for your son — 
from a — a worldly point of view, 3^ou know — 
although both I and McAllister have a very deep and 
warm regard for poor Trilby OTerrall — indeed, a 



187 



great admiration and affection and respect ! She was 
once a model." 

"A model,, Mr. Wynne? "What sort of a model — 
there are models and models, of course." 




"'is she a lady, MR. WYNNE?'" 



" Well, a model of every sort, in every possible sense 
of the word — head, hands, feet, everything !" 

" A model for the Jigure V 

" Well— yes !" 

" Oh, my God ! my God ! my God !" cried Mrs. 
Bagot — and she got up and walked up and down the 



188 

studio in a most terrible state of agitation, her brother- 
in-law following her and begging her to control her- 
self. Her exclamations seemed to shock him, and she 
didn't seem to care. 

" Oh, Mr. Wynne ! Mr. Wynne ! If you only hieiv 
what my son is to me — to all of us— always has been I 
He has been with us all his life, till he came to this 
wicked, accursed city ! My poor husband would never 
hear of his going to any school, for fear of all the 
harm he might learn there. My son was as inno- 
cent and pure-minded as any girl, Mr. Wynne — I could 
have trusted him anywhere — and that's why I gave 
way and allowed him to come Iiere, of all places in the 
world — all alone. Oh ! I should have come with him ! 
Fool — fool — fool that I was ! . . . 

" Oh, Mr. Wynne, he won't see either his mother or 
his uncle ! I found a letter from him at the hotel, 
saying he'd left Paris^and I don't even know where 
he's gone I . . . Can't you, can't Mr. McAllister, do 
anything to avert this miserable disaster? You don't 
know how he loves you both — you should see his let- 
ters to me and to his sister ! they are always full of 
you !" 

"Indeed, Mrs. Bagot — you can count on McAllister 
and me for doing everything in our power ! But it is 
of no use our trying to influence your son — I feel 
quite sure of tluit! It is to her we must make our 
appeal." 

"Oh, Mr. Wynne! to a washer -woman — a figure 
model — and Heaven knows what besides ! and with 
such a chance as this !" 

"Mrs. Bagot, you don't know her? She may have 



189 

heen all that. Bat strange as it may seem to you— 
and seems to me, for that matter — she's a — she's — 
upon my word of honor, I really think she's about the 
best woman I ever met — the most unselfish — the 
most — " 

"Ah! She's a heautifid woman — I can well see 
thatr 

"She has a beautiful nature, Mrs. Bagot — you may 
believe me or not, as you like — and it is to that I shall 
make my appeal, as your son's friend, who has his in- 
terests at heart. And let me tell you that deeply as I 
grieve for you in your present distress, my grief and 
concern for her are far greater !" 

" What ! grief for her if she marries my son !" 

" No, indeed — but if she refuses to marry him. She 
may not do so, of course — but my instinct tells me slie 
will !" 

" Oh ! Mr. Wynne, is that likely ?" 

"I will do my best to make it so — with such an 
utter trust in her unselfish goodness of heart and her 
passionate affection for your son as — " 

" How do you know she has all this passionate af- 
fection for him?" 

" Oh, McAllister and I have long guessed it— though 
we never thought this particular thing would come of 
it. I think, perhaps, that first of all you ought to see 
her 3"ourself — you would get quite a new idea of what 
she really is— you would be surprised, I assure you." 

Mrs. Bagot shrugged her shoulders impatiently, 
and there was silence for a minute or two. 

And then, just as in a play, Trilby's " Milk below !" 
was sounded at the door, and Trilby came into the 



190 

little antechamber, and seeing strangers, was about 
to turn back. She was dressed as a grisette, in her 
Sunday gown and pretty white cap (for it was Kew- 
year's Day), and looking her very best. 

Taffy called out, " Come in. Trilby !" 

And Trilby came into the studio. 

As soon as she saw Mrs. Bagot's face she stopped 
short — erect, her shoulders a little high, her mouth a 
little open, her eyes wide with fright — and pale to the 
lips — a pathetic, yet commanding, magnificent, and 
most distinguished apparition, in spite of her humble 
attire. 

The little lady got up and walked straight to her, 
and looked up into her face, that seemed to tower so. 
Trilby breathed hard. 

At length Mrs. Bagot said, in her high accents, " You 
are Miss Trilby OTerrall ?" 

" Oh yes — yes — I am Trilby OTerrall, and you are 
Mrs. Bagot ; I can see that !" 

A new tone had come into her large, deep, soft 
voice, so tragic, so touching, so strangely in accord 
with the whole aspect just then — so strangely in ac- 
cord with the whole situation — that Taffy felt his 
cheeks and lips turn cold, and his big spine thrill and 
tickle all down his back. 

" Oh yes ; you are very, very beautiful — there's no 
doubt about that ! You wish to marry my son ?" 

" I've refused to marry him nineteen times for his 
own sake ; he will tell you so himself. I am not the 
right person for him to marry. I know that. On 
Christmas night he asked me for the twentieth time ; 
he swore he would leave Paris next day forever if I 



191 



refused him. I hadn't the courage. I was weak, you 
see ! It was a dreadful mistake." 

"Are you so fond of him?" 

" Fond of him ? Aren't you V 

" I'm his mother, my good girl !" 

To this Trilby seemed to have nothing to say. 

"You have just said yourself you are not a fit wife 
for him. If you are ^ofond of him, will you ruin him 
by marrying him ; drag him down ; prevent him from 
getting on in life ; separate him from his sister, his 
family, his friends?" 




"'^FOND OP HIM? aren't TOnP^^ 



192 

Trilby turned her miserable eyes to Taffy's miser- 
able face, and said, " Will it really be all that, Taffy ?" 

" Oh, Trilby, things have got all wrong, and can't be 
righted ! I'm afraid it might be so. Dear Trilby — I 
can't tell you what I feel — but I can't tell you lies, 
you know !" 

" Oh no— Taffy— you don't tell lies !" 

Then Trilby began to tremble very much, and Taffy 
tried to make her sit down, but she wouldn't. Mrs. 
Bagot looked up into lier face, herself breathless with 
keen suspense and cruel anxiety — almost imploring. 

Trilby looked down at Mrs. Bagot very kindly, put 
out her shaking hand, and said ; " Good-bye, Mrs. Bagot. 
I will not marry your son, I promise you. I will 
never see him again." 

Mrs. Bagot caught and clasped her hand and tried 
to kiss it, and said : " Don't go vet, my dear good 
girl. I want to talk to you. I want to tell you how 
deepl}^ I — " 

"Good-bye, Mrs. Bagot," said Trilby, once more; 
and, disengaging her hand, she walked swiftly out of 
the room. 

Mrs. Bagot seemed stupefied, and only half content 
with her quick triumph. 

" She will not marry your son, Mrs. Bagot. I only 
wish to God she'd marry me /" 

" Oh, Mr. Wynne !" said Mrs. Bagot, and burst into 
tears. 

"Ah!" exclaimed the clergyman, with a feebly 
satirical smile and a little cough and sniff that were 
not sympathetic, " now if that could be arranged — and 
I've no doubt there wouldn't be much opposition on 



193 

the part of the lady " (here he made a little compli- 
mentary bow), " it would be a very desirable thing 
all round !" 

" It's tremendously good of you, I'm sure — to inter- 
est yourself in my humble affairs," said Taffy. " Look 
here, sir — I'm not a great genius like your nephew — 
and it doesn't much matter to any one but myself 
what I make of my life — but I can assure you that if 
Trilby's heart were set on me as it is on him, I would 
gladly cast in my lot with hers for life. She's one 
in a thousand. She's the one sinner that repenteth, 
you know !" 

" Ah, yes — to be sure ! — to be sure ! I know all 
about that ; still, facts are facts, and the world is the 
world, and we've got to live in it," said Mr. Bagot, 
whose satirical smile had died away under the gleam 
of Taffy's choleric blue eye. 

Then said the good Taflfy, frowning down on the 
parson (who looked mean and foolish, as people can 
sometimes do even with right on their side) : " And 
now, Mr. Bagot — I can't tell you how very keenly I 
have suffered during this — a — this most painful inter- 
view — on account of my very deep regard for Trilby 
O'Ferrall. I congratulate you and your sister-in-law 
on its complete success. I also feel very deeply for 
your nephew. I'm not sure that he has not lost more 
than he will gain by — a — by the — a — the success of 
this — a — this interview, in short!" 

Taffy's eloquence was exhausted, and his quick tem- 
per was getting the better of him. 

Then Mrs. Bagot, drying her eyes, came and took 
his hand in a very charming and simple manner, and 

13 



194 

said: "Mr. Wynne, I think I know what you are feel- 
ing just now. You must try and make some allow- 
ance for us. You will, I am sure, when we are gone, 
and you have had time to think a little. As for that 
noble and beautiful girl, I only wish that she were 
such that my son could marry her — in her past life, I 
mean. It is not her humble rank that would frighten 
me ; fray believe that I am quite sincere in this — and 
don't think too hardly of your friend's mother. Think 
of all I shall have to go through with my poor son — 
who is deeply in love — and no wonder ! and who has 
won the love of such a woman as that ! and who can- 
not see at present how fatal to him such a marriage 
would be. I can see all the charm and believe in all 
the goodness, in spite of all. And, oh, how beautiful 
she is, and what a voice ! All that counts for so much, 
doesn't it? I cannot tell you how I grieve for her. I 
can make no amends — who could, for such a thing? 
There are no amends, and I shall not even try. I will 
only write and tell her all I think and feel. You will 
forgive us, won't you ?" 

And in the quick, impulsive warmth and grace and 
sincerity of her manner as she said all this, Mrs. Bagot 
was so absurdly like Little Billee that it touched big 
TafiFy's heart, and he would have forgiven anything, 
and there was nothing to forgive. 

" Oh, Mrs. Bagot, there's no question of forgiveness. 
Good heavens ! it is all so unfortunate, you know ! 
Nobody's to blame that I can see. Good-bye, Mrs. 
Bagot; good - bye, sir," and so saying, he saw them 
down to their " remise," in which sat a singularly pret- 
ty young lady of seventeen or so, pale and anxious, 



195 



and so like Little Billee that it was quite funny, and 
touched big Taffy's heart again. 

When Trilby went out into the court-yard in the 
Place St. Anatole des Arts, she saw Miss Bagot look- 
ing out of the carriage window, and in the young 
lady's face, as she caught her eye, an expression of 
sweet surprise and sympathetic admiration, with hfted 




"so LIKE LITTLE BILLEE " 



eyebrows and parted lips — just such a look as she had 
often o:ot from Little Billee ! She knew her for his 
sister at once. It was a sharp pang. 

She turned away, saying to herself : " Oh no ; I will 
not separate him from his sister, his family, his friends ! 
That would nemr do ! Thafs settled, anyhow !" 

Feeling a little dazed, and wishing to think, she 
turned up the Rue Yieille des Mauvais Ladres, which 
was always deserted at this hour. It was empty but 



196 

for a solitary figure sitting on a post, with its legs 
dangling, its hands in its trousers-pockets, an inverted 
pipe in its mouth, a tattered straw hat on the back of 
its head, and a long gray coat down to its heels. It 
was the Laird. 

As soon as he saw her he jumped off his post and 
came to her, saj^ing : " Oh, Trilby — what's it all about ? 
I couldn't stand it ! I ran away ! Little Billee's moth- 
er's there !" 

" Yes, Sandy dear, I've just seen her." 

" Well, what's up ?" 

" I've promised her never to see Little Billee any 
more. I was foolish enough to promise to marry him. 
I refused many times these last three months, and then 
he said he'd leave Paris and never come back, and so, 
like a fool, I gave wa}^ I've offered to live with him 
and take care of him and be his servant — to be every- 
thing: he wished but his wife! But he wouldn't hear 
of it. Dear, dear Little Billee ! he's an angel — and I'll 
take precious good care no harm shall ever come to 
him through me! I shall leave this hateful place and 
go and live in the country : I suppose I must manage 
to get through life somehow. I know of some poor 
people who were once very fond of me, and I could 
live with them and help them and keep myself. The 
difficulty is about Jeannot. I thought it all out before 
it came to this. I Avas well prepared, you see." 

She smiled in a forlorn sort of way, with her upper 
lip drawn tight against her teeth, as if some one were 
pulling her back by the lobes of her ears. 

" Oh! but Trilby — what shall we do without you? 
Taffy and I, you know ! You've become one of us !" 



197 

" Now how good and kind of you to say that !" ex- 
claimed poor Trilby, her eyes filling. " Why, that's 
just all I lived for, till all this happened. But it can't 
be any more now, can it ? Everything is changed for 
me — the very sky seems different. Ah ! Durien's little 
song — '■Plaisir cV amour — cluKjnn (TmnouTP it's all 
quite true, isn't it? I shall start immediately, and 
take Jeannot with me, I think." 

" But where do you think of going?" 

" Ah ! I mayn't tell you that, Sandy dear — not for 
a long time ! Think of all the trouble there'd be — 
Well, there's no time to be lost. I must take the bull 
by the horns." 

She tried to laugh, and took him by his big side- 
whiskers and kissed him on the eyes and mouth, and 
her tears fell on his face. 

Then, feeling unable to speak, she nodded farewell, 
and walked quickly up the narrow winding street. 
When she came to the first bend she turned round and 
waved her hand, and kissed it two or three times, and 
then disappeared. 

The Laird stared for several minutes up the empty 
thoroughfare — wretched, full of sorrow and compas- 
sion. Then he filled himself another pipe and lit it, 
and hitched himself on to another post, and sat there 
dangling his leg's and kicking his heels, and waited for 
the Bagots' cab to depart, that he might go up and 
face the righteous wrath of Taffy like a man, and bear 
up against his bitter reproaches for cowardice and de- 
sertion before the foe. 

Next morning Taffy received two letters: one, a 



198 

very long one, was from Mrs. Bagot. He read it twice 
over, and was forced to acknowledge that it was a 
very good letter — the letter of a clever, warm-hearted 
woman, but a woman also whose son was to her as 
the very apple of her eye. One felt she was ready to 
flay her dearest friend alive in order to make Little 
Billee a pair of gloves out of the skin, if he wanted a 
pair; but one also felt she would be genuinely sorry 
for the friend. Taffy's own mother had been a little 
like that, and he missed her every day of his life. 

Full justice was done by Mrs. Bagot to all Trilby's 
qualities of head and heart and person ; but at the 
same time she pointed out, with all the cunning and 
ingeniously casuistic logic of her sex, when it takes to 
special pleading (even when it has right on its side), 
what the consequences of such a marriage must in- 
evitably be in a few years — even sooner ! The quick 
disenchantment, the life-long regret, on both sides ! 

He could not have found a word to controvert her 
arguments, save perhaps in his own private belief that 
Trilby and Little Billee were both exceptional people ; 
and how could he hope to know Little Billee's nature 
better than the boy's own mother ! 

And if he had been the boy's elder brother in blood, 
as he already was in art and affection, would he, should 
he, could he have given his fraternal sanction to such 
a match ? 

Both as his friend and his brother he felt it was out 
of the question. 

The other letter was from Trilby, in her bold, care- 
less handwriting, that sprawled all over the page, and 
her occasionally imperfect spelling. It ran thus : 




" ' I MUST TAKE THE BULL BY THE HORNS ' " 



200 

" My dear, dear Taffy,— This is to say good-bye. 
I'm going away, to put an end to all this misery, for 
which nobody's to blame but myself. 

" The very moment after I'd said yes to Little Billee 
I knew perfectly well what a stupid fool I was, and 
I've been ashamed of myself ever since. I had a 
miserable week, I can tell you. I knew how it would 
all turn out. 

" I am dreadfully unhappy, but not half so unhappy 
as if I married him and he were ever to regret it and 
be ashamed of me; and of course he would, really, 
even if he didn't show it — good and kind as he is — an 
angel ! 

" Besides — of course I could never be a lady — how 
could I ? — though I ought to have been one, I suppose. 
But everything seems to have gone wrong with me, 
though I never found it out before — and it can't be 
righted ! 

" Poor papa ! 

"I am going away with Jeannot. I've been neglect- 
ing him shamefully. I mean to make up for it all now. 

" You mustn't try and find out where I am going ; 
I know you won't if I beg you, nor any one else. It 
would make everything so much harder for me. 

" Angele knows ; she has promised me not to tell. 
I should like to have a line from you very much.. If 
you send it to her she will send it on to me. 

" Dear Taffy, next to Little Billee, I love you and 
the Laird better than any one else in the Avhole world. 
I've never known real happiness till I met you. You 
have changed me into another person — you and Sandy 
and Little Billee. 



201 

" Ob, it has been a jolly time, though it didn't last 
long. It will have to do for me for life. So good-bye. 
I shall never, never forget ; and remain, with dearest 
love, 

" Your ever faithful and most affectionate friend, 

" Tkilby O'Ferkall. 

"P.S. — When it has all blown over and settled 
again, if it ever does, I shall come back to Paris, per- 
haps, and see you again some day." 

The good Taffy pondered deeply over this letter — 
read it half a dozen times at least ; and then he kissed 
it, and put it back into its envelope and locked it up. 

He knew what very deep anguish underlay this 
somewhat trivial expression of her sorrow. 

He guessed how Trilby, so childishly impulsive and 
demonstrative in the ordinary intercourse of friend- 
ship, would be more reticent than most women in such 
a case as this. 

He wrote to her warmly, affectionately, at great 
length, and sent the letter as she had told him. 

The Laird also wrote a long letter full of tenderly 
worded friendship and sincere regard. Both expressed 
their hope and belief that they would soon see her 
again, when the first bitterness of her grief would be 
over, and that the old pleasant relations would be re- 
newed. 

And then, feeling wretched, they went and silently 
lunched together at the Cafe de I'Odeon, where the 
omelets were good and the wine wasn't blue. 

Late that evening they sat together m the studio, 
reading. They found they could not talk to each 



203 

other very readily without Little Billee to listen — 
three's company sometimes and two's none ! 

Suddenly there was a tremendous getting up the 
dark stairs outside in a violent hurry, and Little Billee 
burst into the room like a small whirlwind — haggard, 
out of breath, almost speechless at first with excite- 
ment. 

"Trilby? where is she? . . . what's become of her? 
. . . She's run away ... oh ! She's written me such a 
letter ! . . , We were to have been married ... at the 
Embassy . . . my mother . . . she's been meddling; 
and that cursed old ass . . . that beast . . . my uncle ! 
, . . They've been here ! I know all about it. . . . 
Why didn't you stick up for her ? . . ." 

" I did ... as well as I could. Sandy couldn't stand 
it, and cut." 

" You stuck up for her . . . yoic — why, you agreed 
with my mother that she oughtn't to marry me — you 
— you false friend — you. . . . Why, she's an angel — 
far too good for the lilies of me . . . you know slie is. 
As ... as for her social position and all that, what de- 
grading rot ! Her father was as much a gentleman as 
mine . . . besides . . . what the devil do I care for 
her father ? . . . it's her I want — her — her — her, I tell 
you ... I can't live without her ... I must have 
her hack — I must have her hack ... do you hear f 
We were to have lived together at Barbizon ... all 
our lives — and I was to have painted stunning pictures 
. . . like those other fellows there. Who cares for 
their '&0QA2X position, I should like to know . . . or that 
of their wives? Damn social position! . . . we've 
often said so — over and over again. An artist's life 




trilby! VVHEIIK IS SHE?'" 



should be aroay from the world — above all that mean- 
ness and paltriness ... all in his work. Social posi- 
tion, indeed ! Over and over again we've said what 
fetid, bestial rot it all was — a thing to make one sick 
and shut one's self away from the world. . . . Why say 
one thing and act another? . . . Love comes before 
all — love levels all — love and art . . . and beauty — 
before such beauty as Trilby's rank doesn't exist. 
Such rank as mine, too ! Good God ! I'll never paint 
another stroke till I've got her back . . . never, never, 
I tell you— I can't— I won't ! . . ." 

And so the poor boy went on, tearing and raving 
about in his rampage, knocking over chairs and easels, 
stammering and shrieking, mad with excitement. 



204 

Tliey tried to reason with him, to make him Hsten, 
to point out that it was not her social position alone 
that unfitted her to be his wife and the mother of his 
children, etc. 

It was no good. He grew more and more uncon- 
trollable, became almost unintelligible, he stammered 
so — a pitiable sight and pitiable to hear. 

" Oh ! oh ! good heavens ! are you so precious im- 
maculate, you two, that you should throw stones at 
poor Trilby ! What a shame, what a hideous shame 
it is that there should be one law for the woman and 
another for the man ! . . . poor weak women — poor, 
soft, affectionate things that beasts of men are always 
running after and pestering and ruining and tramp- 
ling underfoot . . . Oh ! oh ! it makes me sick — it 
makes me sick !" And finally he gasped and screamed 
and fell down in a fit on the floor. 

The doctor was sent for ; Taffy went in a cab to the 
Hotel de Lille et d' Albion to fetch his mother; and 
poor Little Billee, quite unconscious, was undressed by 
Sandy and Madame Vinard and put into the Laird's bed. 

The doctor came, and nut long after Mrs. Bagot and 
her daughter. It was a serious case. Another doctor 
was called in. Beds were got and made up in the 
studio for the two grief-stricken ladies, and thus closed 
the eve of what was to have been poor Little Billee's 
wedding-day, it seems. 

Little Billee's attack appears to have been a kind of 
epileptic seizure. It ended in brain-fever and other 
complications — a long and tedious illness. It was 
many weeks before he was out of danger, and his con- 
valescence was lono- and tedious too. 



205 



His nature seemed changed. He lay languid and 
listless — never even mentioned Trilby, except once to 
ask if she had come back, and if any one knew where 
she was, and if she had been written to. 

She had not, it appears. Mrs. Bagot had thought 
it was better not, and Taffy and the Laird agreed with 
her that no good could 
come of writing. 

Mrs. Bagot felt bit- 
terly against the wom- 
an who had been the 
cause of all this trouble, 
and bitterly against 
herself for her injus- 
tice. It was an unhap- 
py time for everybody. 

There was more un- 
happiness still to come. 

One day in February 
Madame Angele Boisse 
called on Taffy and the 
Laird in the temporary 
studio where they 
worked. She was in 
terrible tribulation. 

Trilby's little brother had died of scarlet - fever 
and was buried, and Trilby had left her hiding- 
place the day after the funeral and had never come 
back, and this was a week ago. She and Jeannot 
had been living at a village called Yibraye, in la 
Sarthe, lodging with some poor people she knew — 




LA S(EFR DE LITREBILI 



206 

she washing and working with her needle till her 
brother fell ill. 

She had never left his bedside for a moment, night 
or day, and when he died her grief was so terrible 
that people thought she would go out of her mind ; 
and the day after he w^as buried she was not to be 
found anywhere — she had disappeared, taking noth- 
ing with her, not even her clothes — simply vanished 
and left no sign, no message of any kind. 

All the ponds had been searched — all the wells, and 
the small stream that flows through Yibraye — and the 
old forest. 

Taffy went to Vibraye, cross-examined everybody 
he could, communicated with the Paris police, but 
with no result, and every afternoon, with a beating 
heart, he went to the Morgue. . . . 

The news was of course kept from Little Billee. 
There was no difficulty about tliis. He never asked a 
question, hardly ever spoke. 

When he first got up and was carried into the studio 
he asked for his picture " The Pitcher Goes to the 
Well," and looked at it for a while, and then shrugged 
his shoulders and laughed— a miserable sort of laugh, 
painful to hear — the laugh of a cold old man, who 
laughs so as not to cry ! Then he looked at his mother 
and sister, and saw the sad havoc that grief and anxiety 
had wrought in them. 

It seemed to him, as in a bad dream, that he had 
been mad for many years — a cause of endless sicken- 
ing terror and distress; and that his poor weak wan- 
dering wits had come back at last, bringing in their 



207 



train cruel remorse, and the remembrance of all the 
patient love and kindness that had been lavished on 
him for many years! His sweet sister — his dear, long- 
suffering mother ! what had really happened to make 
them look like this ? 

And taking them both in his feeble arms, he fell 
a-weeping, quite desperately and for a long time. 

And when his w'eeping-fit was over, when he had 
quite wept himself out, he fell asleep. 

And when he aw^oke he was conscious that another 
sad thing had happened to him, and that for some 




HE FELL A-WEEPING, QUITE DESPERATELY 



208 

mysterious cause bis power of loving had not come 
back with his wandering wits — had been left behind — 
and it seemed to hira that it was gone for ever and 
ever — would never come back again — not even his love 
for his mother and sister, not even his love for Trilby 
— where all that had once been was a void, a gap, a 
blankness. . . . 

Trulj^, if Trilby had suffered much, she had also 
been the innocent cause of terrible suffering. Poor 
Mrs. Bagot, in her heart, could not forgive her. 

I feel this is getting to be quite a sad story, and 
that it is high time to cut this part of it short. 

As the warmer weather came, and Little Billee got 
stronger, the studio became more pleasant. The ladies' 
beds were removed to another studio on the next land- 
ing, which was vacant, and the friends came to see 
Little Billee, and make it more lively for him and his 
sister. 

As for Taffy and the Laird, they had already long 
been to Mrs. Bagot as a pair of crutches, without 
whose invaluable help she could never have held her- 
self upright to pick her way in all this maze of trouble. 

Then M. Carrell came every day to chat with his fa- 
vorite pupil and gladden Mrs. Bagot's heart. And also 
Durien, Carnegie, Petrolicoconose, Vincent, Antony, 
Lorrimer, Dodor, and 1' Zouzou ; Mrs. Bagot thought 
the last two irresistible, when she had once been satis- 
fied that they were " gentlemen," in spite of appear- 
ances. And, indeed, they showed themselves to great 
advantage ; and though they were so much the oppo- 
site to Little Billee in everything, she felt almost ma- 
ternal towards them, and gave them innocent, good, 



209 

motherly advice, which they swallowed avec atteTh- 
drissement, not even stealing a look at each other. 
And they held Mrs. Bagot's wool, and listened to Miss 
Bagot's sacred music with upturned pious eyes, and 
mealy mouths that butter wouldn't melt in ! 

It is good to be a soldier and a detrimental ; you 
touch the hearts of women and charm them — old and 
young, high or low (excepting, perhaps, a few worldly 
mothers of marriageable daughters). They take the 
sticking of your tongue in the cheek for the wearing 
of your heart on the sleeve. 

Indeed, good women all over the world, and ever 
since it began, have loved to be bamboozled by these 
genial, roistering dare-devils, who haven't got a penny 
to bless themselves with (which is so touching), and are 
supposed to carry their lives in their hands, even in 
piping times of peace. Nay, even a few rare had 
women sometimes, such women as the best and wisest 
of us are often ready to sell our souls for ! 

" A lightsome eye, a soldier's mien, 
A feather of the blue, 
A doublet of the Lincoln green — 
No more of me you knew, 

My love ! 
No more of me you knew. . . ." 

As if that wasn't enough, and to spare! 

Little Billee could hardly realize that these two po- 
lite and gentle and sympathetic sons of Mars were the 
lively grigs who had made themselves so pleasant all 
round, and in such a singular manner, on the top of 
that St. Cloud omnibus; and he admired how they 
added hypocrisy to their other crimes ! 

14 



210 

Svengali had gone back to Germany, it seemed, 
with his pockets full of napoleons and big Havana 
cigars, and wrapped in an immense fur-lined coat, 
which he meant to wear all through the summer. 
But little Gecko often came with his violin and made 
lovely music, and that seemed to do Little Billee more 
good than anything else. 

It made him realize in his brain all the love he 
could no longer feel in his heart. The sweet melo- 
dic phrase, rendered by a master, was as wholesome, 
refreshing balm to him while it lasted — or as manna 
in the wilderness. It was the one good thing with- 
in his reach, never to be taken from him as long as 
his ear-drums remained and he could hear a master 
play. 

Poor Gecko treated the two English ladies de has 
en haut as if they had been goddesses, even when they 
accompanied him on the piano ! He begged their 
pardon for every wrong note they struck, and adopt- 
ed their "tempi" — that is the proper technical term, 
I believe — and turned scherzos and allegrettos into 
funeral dirges to please them; and agreed with them, 
poor little traitor, that it all sounded much better like 
that ! 

O Beethoven ! O Mozart ! did you turn in yonr 
graves ? 

Then, on fine afternoons, Little Billee was taken for 
drives to the Bois de Boulogne with his mother and 
sister in an open fly, and generally Taffy as a fourth ; 
to Passy, Auteuil, Boulogne, St. Cloud, Meudon — 
there are many charming places within an easy drive 
of Paris. 



313 

And sometimes Taffy or the Laird ^Tould escort Mrs. 
and Miss Bagot to the Luxembourg Gallery, the Lou- 
vre, the Palais Royal — to the Comedie Franyaise once 
or twice ; and on Sundays, now and then, to the Eng- 
lish chapel in the Rue Marboeuf . It was all very pleas- 
ant ; and Miss Bagot looks back on the days of her 
brother's convalescence as among the happiest in her 
life. 

And they would all five dine together in the studio, 
with Madame Yinard to wait, and her mother (a cor- 
don bleu) for cook ; and the whole aspect of the place 
was changed and made fragrant, sweet, and charming 
by all this new feminine invasion and occupation. 

And what is sweeter to watch than the dawn and 
growth of love's young dream, when strength and 
beauty meet together by the couch of a beloved in- 
valid ? 

Of course the sympathetic reader will foresee how 
readily the stalwart Taffy fell a victim to the charms 
of his friend's sweet sister, and how she grew to re- 
turn his more than brotherly regard ! and how, one 
lovely evening, just as March was going out like a 
lamb (to make room for the first of April), little Bil- 
lee joined their hands together, and gave them his 
brotherly blessing ! 

As a matter of fact, however, nothing of this kind 
happened. Nothing ever happens but the ti^^^foreseen. 
Pazienza ! 

Then at length one day — it was a fine, sunny, show- 
ery day in April, by-the-bye, and the big studio win- 
dow was open at the top and let in a pleasant breeze 



213 

from the northwest, just as when our little story began 
— a railway omnibus drew up at the porte cochere in 
the Place St. Anatole des Arts, and carried away to 
the station of the Chemin de Fer du Nord Little Billee 
and his mother and sister, and all their belongings 
(the famous picture had gone before) ; and Taffy and 
the Laird rode with them, their faces very long, to see 
the last of the dear people, and of the train that was 
to bear them away from Paris ; and Little Billee, with 
his quick, prehensile, aesthetic eye, took many a long 
and wistful parting gaze at many a French thing he 
loved, from the gray towers of Notre Dame down- 
ward — Heaven only knew when he might see them 
again ! — so he tried to get their aspect well by heart, 
that he might have the better store of beloved shape 
and color memories to chew the cud of when his lost 
powers of loving and remembering clearly should come 
back, and he lay awake at night and listened to the 
wash of the Atlantic along the beautiful red sandstone 
coast at home. 

He had a faint hope that he should feel sorry at 
parting with Taffy and the Laird. 

But when the time came for saying good-bye he 
couldn't feel sorry in the least, for all he tried and 
strained so hard ! 

So he thanked them so earnestly and profusely for 
all their kindness and patience and sympathy (as did 
also his mother and sister) that their hearts were too 
full to speak, and their manner was quite gruff — it 
was a way they had when they were deeply moved 
and didn't want to show it. 

And as he gazed out of the carriage window at their 



214 

two forlorn figures looking after him when the train 
steamed out of the station, his sorrow at not feeling 
sorry made him look so haggard and so woe-begone 
that they could scarcely bear the sight of him depart- 
ing without them, and almost felt as if they must fol- 
low by the next train, and go and cheer him up in 
Devonshire, and themselves too. 

They did not yield to this amiable weakness. Sor- 
rowfully, arm in arm, with trailing umbrellas, they 
recrossed the river, and found their way to the Cafe 
de rOdeon, where they ate many omelets in silence, 
and dejectedly drank of the best they could get, and 
were very sad indeed. 



Nearly five years have elapsed since we bade fare- 
well and au revoir to Taffy and the Laird at the Paris 
station of the Chemin de Fer du Nord, and wished 
Little Billee and his mother and sister Godspeed on 
their way to Devonshire, where the poor sufferer w^as 
to rest and lie fallow for a few months, and recruit 
his lost strength and energy, that he might follow up 
his first and well-deserved success, which perhaps con- 
tributed just a little to his recovery. 

Many of my readers will remember his splendid 
debut at the Eoyal Academy in Trafalgar Square 
with that now so famous canvas " The Pitcher Goes 
to the Well," and how it was sold three times over on 
the morning of the private view, the third time for a 
thousand pounds — just five times what he got for it 










"sorrowfully, arm in arm" 



216 

himself. And that was thought a large sum in those 
days for a beginner's picture, two feet by four. 

I am well aware that such a vulgar test is no crite- 
rion whatever of a picture's real merit. But this pict- 
ure is well known to all the world by this time, and 
sold only last year at Christy's (more than thirty-six 
years after it was painted) for three thousand pounds. 

Thirty-six years ! That goes a long way to redeem 
even three thousand pounds of all their cumulative 
vulgarity. 

"The Pitcher" is now in the National Gallery, 
with that other canvas by the same hand, " The Moon- 
Dial." There they hang together for all who care to 
see them, his first and his last — the blossom and the 
fruit. 

He had not long to live himself, and it was his good- 
fortune, so rare among those whose work is destined 
to live forever, that he succeeded at his first go-off. 

And his success was of the best and most flattering 
kind. 

It began high up, where it should, among the mas- 
ters of his own craft. But his fame filtered quickly 
down to those immediately beneath, and through 
these to wider circles. And there was quite enough 
of opposition and vilification and coarse abuse of him 
to clear it of any suspicion of cheapness or evanes- 
cence. What better antiseptic can there be than the 
Philistine's deep hate ? What sweeter, fresher, whole- 
somer music than the sound of his voice when he doth 
so furiously rage ? 

Yes! That is "good production." As SvengaU 
would have said, " C'est un cri du coeur !" 



217 

And then, when popular acclaim brings the great 
dealers and the big cheques, up rises the printed howl 
of the duffer, the disappointed one, the " wounded 
thing with an angry cry " — the prosperous and happy 
bagman that should have been, who has given up all 
for art, and finds he can't paint and make himself a 
name, after all, and never will, so falls to writing 
about those who can — and what writing ! 

To write in hissing dispraise of our more successful 
fellow-craftsman, and of those who admire him ! that 
is not a clean or pretty trade. It seems, alas ! an easy 
one, and it gives pleasure to so many. It does not 
even want good grammar. But it pays — well enough 
even to start and run a magazine with, instead of 
scholarship and taste and talent ! humor, sense, wit, 
and wisdom ! It is something like the purveying of 
pornographic pictures : some of us look at them and 
laugh, and even buy. To be a purchaser is bad 
enough ; but to be the purveyor thereof — ugh ! 

A poor devil of a cracked soprano (are there such 
people still ?) who has been turned out of the Pope's 
choir because he can't sing in tune, after all! — think 
of him yelling and squeaking his treble rage at Sant- 
ley — Sims Reeves — Lablache ! 

Poor, lost, beardless nondescript ! why not fly to 
other climes, where at least thou might'st hide from 
us thy woful crack, and keep thy miserable secret to 
thyself! Are there no harems still left in Stamboul 
for the likes of thee to sweep and clean, no women's 
beds to make and slops to empty, and doors and win- 
dows to bar — and tales to carry, and the pasha's con- 
fidence and favor and protection to win ? Even that 



218 

is a better trade than pandering for hire to the basest 
instinct of all — the dirty pleasure we feel (some of us) 
in seeing mud and dead cats and rotten eggs flung at 
those we cannot but admire — and secretly envy ! 

All of which eloquence means that Little Billee was 
pitched into right and left, as well as overpraised. And 
it all rolled off him like water off a duck's back, both 
praise and blame. 

It was a happy summer for Mrs. Bagot, a sweet 
compensation for all the anguish of the winter that 
had gone before, with her two beloved children to- 
gether under her wing, and all the world (for her) 
ringing with the praise of her boy, the apple of her 
eye, so providentially rescued from the very jaws of 
death, and from other dangers almost as terrible to 
her tiercel}' jealous maternal heart. 

And his affection for her seemed to groAV with his 
returning health ; but, alas ! he was never again to be 
quite the same light-hearted, innocent, expansive lad 
he had been before that fatal year spent in Paris. 

One chapter of his life was closed, never to be re- 
opened, never to be spoken of again by him to her, by 
her to him. She could neither forgive nor forget. She 
could but be silent. 

Otherwise he was pleasant and sweet to live with, 
and everything was done to make his life at home as 
sweet and pleasant as a loving mother could — as could 
a most charming sister — and others' sisters who were 
charming too, and much disposed to worship at the 
shrine of this young celebrity, who woke up one 
morning in their little village to find himself famous. 



219 

and bore his blushing honors so meekly. And among 
them the vicar's daughter, his sister's friend and co- 
teacher at the Sunday - school, " a simple, pure, and 
pious maiden of gentle birth," everything he once 
thought a young lady should be ; and her name it 
was Alice, and she was sweet, and her hair was brown 
— as brown ! . . . 

And if he no longer found the simple country pleas- 
ures, the junketings and picnics, the garden-parties 
and innocent little musical evenings, quite so exciting 
as of old, he never showed it. 

Indeed, there was much that he did not show, and 
that his mother and sister tried in vain to guess — many 
things. 

And among them one thing that constantly preoc- 
cupied and distressed him — the numbness of his affec- 
tions. He could be as easily demonstrative to his 
mother and sister as though nothing had ever hap- 
pened to him — from the mere force of a sweet old 
habit — even more so, out of sheer gratitude and com- 
punction. 

But, alas! he feit that in his heart he could no 
longer care for them in the least ! — nor for Taffy, nor 
the Laird, nor for himself ; not even for Trilby, of 
whom he constantly thought, but without emotion ; 
and of whose strange disappearance he had been told, 
and the story had been confirmed in all its details by 
Angele Boisse, to whom he had written. 

It was as though some part of his brain where his 
affections were seated had been paralyzed, while all 
the rest of it was as keen and as active as ever. He 
felt like some poor live bird or beast or reptile, a part 



220 

of whose cerebrum (or cerebellum, or whatever it is) 
had been dug out by the vivisector for experimental 
purposes; and the strongest emotional feeling he 
seemed capable of was his anxiety and alarm about 
this curious symptom, and his concern as to Avhether 
he ought to mention it or not. 

He did not do so, for fear of causing distress, hoping 
that it would pass away in time, and redoubled his ca- 
resses to his mother and sister, and clung to them more 
than ever ; and became more considerate of others in 
manner, word, and deed than he had ever been before, 
as though by constantly assuming the virtue he had 
no longer he would gradually coax it back again. 
There was no trouble he would not take to give pleas- 
ure to the humblest. 

Also, his vanity about himself had become as noth- 
ing, and he missed it almost as much as his affec- 
tion. 

Yet he told himself over and over again that he was 
a great artist, and that he would spare no pains to 
make himself a greater. But that was no merit of his 
own. 

24-2 = 4, also 2x 2=4 ; that peculiarity was no rea- 
son why 4 should be conceited ; for what was 4 but 
a result, either way ? 

"Well, he was like 4 — just an inevitable result of cir- 
cumstances over which he had no control — a mere 
product or sum ; and though he meant to make him- 
self as big a 4 as he could (to cultivate his peculiar 
fourness), he could no longer feel the old conceit and 
self-complacency ; and they had been a joy, and it was 
hard to do without them. 



321 

At the bottom of it all was a vague, disquieting un- 
happiness, a constant fidget. 

And it seemed to him, and much to his distress, 
that such mild unhappiness would be the greatest he 
could ever feel henceforward — but that, such as it was, 
it would never leave him, and that his moral existence 
would be for evermore one long, gray, gloomy blank — 
the glimmer of twilight — never glad, confident morn- 
ing again ! 

So much for Little Billee's convalescence. 

Then one day in the late autumn he spread his wings 
and flew away to London, which was very ready with 
open arms to welcome William Bagot, the already fa- 
mous painter, alias Little Billee 1 



part jfiftb 

LITTLE BILLEE 

An Interlude 

'Then tlie mortal coldness of the Soul like death itself conies 

down ; 
It cannot feel for others' woes, it dare not dream its own ; 
That heavy ehill has frozen o'er the fountain of our tears, 
And, though the eye may sparlile yet, 'tis where the ice ap- 
pears. 

"Though wit may flash from fluent lips, ami mirth distract the 
breast, 
Through midnight liours that yield no more their former hope 

of rest: 
'Tis but as ivy leaves around a ruined turret wreathe, 
All green and wildly fresh without, but worn and gray be- 
neatli." 

When Taffy and the Laird went back to the stu- 
dio iu the Phice St. Anatole des Arts, and resumed 
their ordinary Hfe there, it was with a sense of deso- 
lation and dull bereavement beyond anything they 
could have imagined ; and this did not seem to lessen 
as the time wore on. 

They reaHzed for the first time how keen and pen- 
etrating and un intermittent had been the charm of 
those two central figures — Trilby and Little Billee — 
and how hard it was to live without them, after such 
intimacy as had been theirs. 



" Oh, it has been a jolly time, though it didn't last 
long !" So Trilby had written in her farewell letter 
to Taffy ; and these words were true for Taffy and 
the Laird as well as for her. 

And that is the worst of those dear people who 
have charm : they are so terrible to do without, when 
once you have got accustomed to them and all their 
ways. 

And when, besides being charming, they are sim- 
ple, clever, affectionate, constant, and sincere, like 
Trilby and Little ]>illee ! Then the lamentable hole 
their disappearance makes is not to be filled up ! And 
when they are full of genius, like Little Billee — and 
like Trilby, funny without being vulgar ! For so she 
always seemed to the Laird and Taffy, even in French 
(in spite of her Gallic audacities of thought, speech, 
and gesture). 

All seemed to have suffered change. The very 
boxing and fencing were gone through perfunctorily, 
for mere health's sake ; and a thin layer of adipose 
deposit began to soften the outlines of the hills and 
dales on Taffy's mighty forearm. 

Dodor and V Zouzou no longer came so often, now 
that the charming Little liillee and his charming 
mother and still more charming sister had goneaway — 
nor Carnegie, nor Antony, nor Lorrimer, nor Vincent, 
nor the Greek. Gecko never came at all. Even Sven- 
gali was missed, little as he had been liked. It is a 
dismal and sulky looking piece of furniture, a grand- 
piano that nobody ever plays — Avith all its sound and 
its souvenirs locked up inside — a kind of mausoleum ! 
a lop-sided coffin — trestles and all ! 



234 

So it went back to London by the "little quick- 
ness," just as it had come! 

Thus Taffy and the Laird grew quite sad and raopy, 
and lunched at the Cafe de TOdeon every day — till 
the goodness of the omelets palled, and the redness 
of the wine there got on their nerves and into their 
heads and faces, and made them sleepy till dinner- 
time. And then, waking up, they dressed respecta- 
bly, and dined expensively, "like gentlemen," in the 
Palais Royal, or the Passage Choiseul, or the Passage 
des Panoramas — for three francs, three francs fifty, 
even five francs a head, and half a franc to the wait- 
er ! — and went to the theatre almost every night, on 
that side of the water — and more often than not they 
took a cab home, each smoking a Panatella, which 
costs twenty-five centimes — five sous — 2|^t7. 

Then they feebly drifted into quite decent society — 
like Lorrimer and Carnegie — with dress -coats and 
white ties on, and their hair parted in the middle and 
down the back of the head, and brought over the ears 
in a bunch at each side, as was the English fashion in 
those days ; and subscribed to Galignani's Messenger ; 
and had themselves proposed and seconded for the 
Cercle Anglais in the Rue Sainte-n'y touche, a circle 
of British philistines of the very deepest dye ; and 
went to hear divine service on Sunday mornings in 
the Rue Marboeuf ! 

Indeed, by the end of the summer they had sunk 
into such depths of demoralization that they felt they 
must really have a change ; and decided on giving up 
the studio in the Place St. Anatole des Arts, and leav- 
ing- Paris for good : and going to settle for the winter 




DEMORALIZATION 



in Diisseldorf, which is a very pleasant place for Eng- 
lish painters who do not wish to overwork themselves 
— as the Laird well knew, having spent a year there. 

It ended in Taffy's going to Antwerp for the Ker- 
messe, to paint the Flemish drunkard of our time 
just as he really is ; and the Laird's going to Spain, 
so that he might study toreadors from the life. 

I may as well state here that the Laird's toreador 
pictures, which had had quite a vogue in Scotland 
as long as he had been content to paint them in 
the Place St. Anatole des Arts, quite ceased to please 
(or sell) after he had been to Seville and Madrid ; so 
he took to painting Roman cardinals and Neapolitan 

15 



226 

pifferari from the depths of his consciousness — and 
was so successful that he made up his mind he would 
never spoil his market by going to Italy ! 

So he went and painted his cardinals and his piffe- 
rari in Algiers, and Taffy joined him there, and paint- 
ed Algerian Jews — just as they really are (and didn't 
sell them) ; and then they spent a year in Munich, 
and then a year in Diisseldorf, and a winter in Cairo, 
and so on. 

And all this time Taffy, who took everything au 
grand serieux — especially the claims and obligations 
of friendship — corresponded regularly with Little 
Billee, who wrote him long and amusing letters back 
again, and had plenty to say about his life in London 
— which was a series of triumphs, artistic and social 
- — and you would have thought from his letters, mod- 
est though they were, that no happier 3'oung man, or 
more elate, was to be found anywhere in the world. 

It was a good time in England, just then, for young 
artists of promise ; a time of evolution, revolution, 
claange, and development — of the founding of new 
schools and the crumbling away of old ones — a keen 
struggle for existence — a surviving of the fit — a prep- 
aration, let us hope, for the ultimate survival of the 
fittest. 

And among the many glories of this particular pe- 
riod two names stand out very conspicuously — for the 
immediate and (so far) lasting fame their bearers 
achieved, and the wide influence they exerted, and 
continue to exert still. 

The world will not easily forget Frederic Walker 
and William Bagot, those two singularly gifted boj^s, 



227 



whom it soon became the fashion to bracket together, 
to compare and to contrast, as one compares and con- 
trasts Thackeray and Dickens, Carlyle and Macaulay, 
Tennyson and Browning — a futile though pleasant 
practice, of which the temptations seem irresistible ! 

Yet why compare the lily and the rose ? 

These two young masters had the genius and the 
luck to be the progenitors of much of the best art- 
work that has been done in England during the last 
thirty years, in oils, in 
water-color, in black and 
white. 

They were both essen- 
tially English and of 
their own time ; both ab- 
solutely original, receiv- 
ing their impressions 
straight from nature it- 
self ; uninfluenced by any 
school, ancient or mod- 
ern, they founded schools 
instead of following any, 
and each was a law unto 
himself, and a law-giver 
unto many others. 

Both were equally great in whatever they attempted 
— landscape, figures, birds, beasts, or fishes. Who does 
not remember the fish-monger's shop by F. "Walker, or 
W. Bagot's little piebald piglings, and their venerable 
black mother, and their immense, fat, wallowing pink 
papa ? An ineffable charm of poetry and refinement, 
of pathos and sympathy and delicate humor combined, 




FRED WALKER 



328 

an incomparable ease and grace and felicity of work- 
manship belong to each ; and yet in their work are 
they not as wide apart as the poles ; each complete in 
himself and yet a complement to the other ? 

And, oddly enough, they were both singularly alike 
in aspect — both small and slight, though beautifully 
made, with tiny hands and feet ; always arrayed as the 
lilies of the field, for all they toiled and spun so ar- 
duously ; both had regularly featured faces of a noble 
cast and most winning character ; both had the best 
and simplest manners in the world, and a way of get- 
ting themselves much and quicldy and permanently 
liked. . . . 

Que la terre leur soit legere ! 

And who can say that the fame of one is greater 
than the other's ! 

Their pinnacles are twin, I venture to believe — of 
just an equal height and width and thickness, like their 
bodies in this life ; but unlike their frail bodies in one 
respect : no taller pinnacles are to be seen, methinks, 
in all the garden of the deathless dead painters of our 
time, and none more built to last ! 

But it is not with the art of Little Billee, nor with 
his fame as a painter, that we are chiefly concerned in 
this unpretending little tale, except in so far as they 
have some bearing on his character and his fate, 

" I should like to know the detailed history of the 
Englishman's first love, and how he lost his inno- 
cence !" 

" Ask him !" 

" Ask him yourself !" 



239 

Thus Papelard and Boucliardy, on the morning of 
Little Billee's first appearance at Carrel's studio, in 
the Rue des Potirons St. Michel. 

And that is the question the present scribe is doing 
his little best to answer. 

A good-looking, famous, well-bred, and well-dressed 
youth finds that London Society opens its doors very 
readily ; he hasn't long to knock ; and it would be 
difficult to find a youth more fortunately situated, 
handsomer, more famous, better dressed or better bred, 
more seemingly happy and successful, with more at- 
tractive qualities and more condonable faults, than 
Little Billee, as Taffy and the Laird found him when 
they came to London after their four or five years in 
foreign parts — their Wanderjahr. 

He had a fine studio and a handsome suite of rooms 
in Fitzroy Square. Beautiful specimens of his unfin- 
ished work, endless studies, hung on liis studio walls. 
Everything else was as nice as it could be — the furni- 
ture, the bibelots, and bric-a-brac, the artistic foreign 
and Eastern knick-knacks and draperies and hangings 
and curtains and rugs — the semi-grand piano by Col- 
lard & Collard. 

That immortal canvas, the "Moon-Dial" (just be- 
gun, and already commissioned by Moses Lyon, the 
famous picture-dealer), lay on his easel. 

No man worked harder and with teeth more clinched 
than Little Billee when he was at work — none rested 
or played more discreetly when it was time to rest or 
play. 

The glass on his mantel-piece was full of cards of 



230 



invitation, reminders, pretty mauve and pink and lilac- 
scented notes ; nor were coronets wanting on many of 
these hospitable little missives. He had quite over- 
come his fan- 
cied aversion 
for bloated 
dukes and 
lords and the 
rest (we all do 
sooner or lat- 
er, if things go 
well with us) ; 
especially for 
their wives 
and sisters and 
daughters and 
female cous- 
ins; even their 
mothers and 
aunts. In 
point of fact, and in spite of his 
tender years, he was in some 
danger (for his art) of developing 
into that type so adored by sym- 
pathetic women who Imven't got 
much to do : the friend, the tame 
cat, the platonic lover (with many 
loves) — the squire of dames, the 
trusty one, of whom husbands 
and brothers have no fear! — 
the delicate, harmless dilettante 
of Eros — the dainty shepherd 




PLATONIC LOVE 



231 

who dwells "dans le pays du tendre!" — and stops 
there ! 

The woman flatters and the man confides — and 
there is no danger whatever, I'm told — and I am glad ! 

One man loves his fiddle (or, alas ! his neighbor's 
sometimes) for all the melodies he can wake from it — 
it is but a selfish love ! 

Another, who is no fiddler, may love a fiddle too ; 
for its symmetry, its neatness, its color — its deli- 
cate grainings, the lovely lines and curves of its back 
and front — for its own sake, so to speak. He may 
have a whole galleryful of fiddles to love in this in- 
nocent way — a harem ! — and yet not know a single 
note of music, or even care to hear one. He will dust 
them and stroke them, and take them down and try 
to put them in tune — pizzicato!— and put them back 
again, and call them ever such sweet little pet names : 
viol, viola, viola d'amore, viol di gamba, violino mio! 
and breathe his little troubles into them, and they 
will give back inaudible little murmurs in sympathetic 
response, like a damp ^olian harp ; but he will never 
draw a bow across the strings, nor wake a single chord 
—or discord ! 

And who shall say he is not wise in his generation? 
It is but an old-fashioned philistine notion that fiddles 
were only made to be played on — the fiddles them- 
selves are beginning to resent it ; and rightly, I wot ! 

In this harmless fashion Little Billee was friends 
with more than one fine lady de par le monde. 

Indeed, he had been reproached by his more bo- 
hemian brothers of the brush for being something of 
a tuft-hunter — most unjustly. But nothing gives such 



232 



keen offence to our unsuccessful brother, bohemian oi 
bourgeois, as our sudden intimacy with the so-called 
great, the little lords and ladies of this little world ! 
Kot even our fame and success, and all the joy and 
pride they bring us, are so hard to condone — so im- 
bittering, so humiliating, to the jealous fraternal 
heart. 

Alas ! poor humanity — that the mere countenance 
of our betters (if they are our betters !) should be 
thought so priceless a boon, so consummate an achieve- 
ment, so crowning a glory, as all that ! 

"A dirty bit of orange-peel, 
Tlie stump of a cigar — 
Once trod on by a princely heel, 
How beautiful they are !" 

Little Billee was no tuft-hunter — he was the tuft- 
hunted, or had been. No one of his kind was ever 
more persistently, resolutely, hospitably harried than 
this young "hare with- many friends" by people of 
rank and fashion. 

And at first he thought them most charming; as 
they so often are, these graceful, gracious, gay, good- 
natured stoics and barbarians, whose manners are as 
easy and simple as their morals — but how much better ! 
— and who, at least, have this charm, that they can 
wallow in untold gold (when they happen to possess 
it) without ever seeming to stinlc of the same: yes, 
they bear wealtli gracefully — and the want of it more 
gracefully still ! and these are pretty accomplishments 
that have yet to be learned by our new aristocracy of 
the shop and counting-house, Jew or gentile, which is 



283 

everywhere elbowing its irresistible way to the top 
and front of everything, both here and abroad. 

Then he discovered that, much as you might be 
with them, you could never be of them, unless per- 
chance you managed to hook on by marrying one of 
their ugly ducklings — their failures — their remnants ! 
and even then life isn't all beer and skittles for a rank 
outsider, I'm told ! Then he discovered that he didn't 
want to be of them in the least ; especially at such a 
cost as that ! and that to be very much with them 
was apt to pall, like everything else. 

Also, he found that they were very mixed ; good, 
bad, and indifferent — and not always very dainty or 
select in their predilections, since they took unto their 
bosoms such queer outsiders (just for the sake of being 
amused a little while) that their capricious favor ceased 
to be an honor and a glory — if it ever was ! And, then, 
their fickleness ! 

Indeed, he found, or thought he found, that they 
could be just as clever, as liberal, as polite or refined 
— as narrow, insolent, swaggering, coarse, and vulgar 
— as handsome, as ugly — as graceful, as ungainly — as 
modest or conceited, as any other upper class of the 
community — and, indeed, some lower ones ! 

Beautiful young women, who had been taught how 
to paint pretty little landscapes (with an ivy-mantled 
ruin in the middle distance), talked technically of paint- 
ing to him, de pair a pair\ as though they were quite 
on the same artistic level, and didn't mind admitting 
it, in spite of the social gulf between. 

Hideous old frumps (osseous or obese, yet with un- 
duly bared neck, and shoulders that made him sick) 



234 

patronized him and gave hira good advice, and told 
iiim to emulate Mr. Buckner both in bis genius and 
bis manners — since Mr. Buckner was tbe only " gentle- 
man " wbo ever painted for bire ; and tbey promised 
bim, in time, an equal success ! 

Here and tbere some sweet old darling specially en- 
slaved bim by ber kindness, grace, knowledge of life, 
and tender womanly sympathy, like tbe dowager Lady 
Cbiselburst — or some sweet young one, like tbe lovely 
Ducbess of Towers, by ber beauty, wit, good-bumor, 
and sisterly interest in all be did, and wbo in some 
vague, distant manner constantly reminded bim of 
Trilby, although she was such a great and fashionable 
lady ! 

But just such darlings, old or young, were to be 
found, with still higher ideals, in less exalted spheres ; 
and were easier of access, with no impassable gulf 
between — spheres where there was no patronizing, 
nothing but deference and warm appreciation and 
delicate flattery, from men and women alike — and 
where the aged Venuses, whose prime was of tbe days 
of Waterloo, went Avith their historical remains duly 
shrouded, like ivy - mantled ruins (and in the middle 
distance I). 

So he actually grew tired of tbe great before they 
had time to tire of him — ^ incredible as it may seem, 
and against nature; and this saved him many a heart- 
burning; and he ceased to be seen at fashionable 
drums or gatherings of any kind, except in one or two 
houses where be was especially liked and made wel- 
come for bis own sake ; such as Lord Chiselhurst's in 
Piccadilly, where tbe " Moon-Dial " found a home for 




V^' 



236 

a few years, before going to its last home and final 
resting-place in the 'N'ational Gallery (R. I. P.) ; or 
Baron Stoppenheim's in Cavendish Square, where 
many lovely little water-colors signed W. B. occupied 
places of honor on gorgeously gilded walls ; or the 
gorgeously gilded bachelor rooms of Mr. Moses Lyon, 
the picture-dealer in Upper Conduit Street — for Little 
Billee (L much grieve to say it of a hero of romance) 
was an excellent man of business. Tliat infinitesimal 
dose of the good old Oriental blood kept him straight, 
and not only made him stick to his last through thick 
and thin, but also to those whose foot his last was 
found to match (for he couldn't or wouldn't alter his 
last). 

He loved to make as much money as he could, that 
he might spend it royally in pretty gifts to his mother 
and sister, whom it was his pleasure to load in this 
way, and whose circumstances had been very much 
altered by his quick success. There was never a more 
generous son or brother than Little Billee of the 
clouded heart, that couldn't love any longer ! 

As a set-off to all these splendors, it was also his 
pleasure now and again to study London life at its 
ower end — the eastest end of all. Whitechapel, the 
Minories, the Docks, E,atcliffe Highway, Rotherhithe, 
soon got to knov/ him well, and he found much to 
mterest him and much to like among their denizens, 
and made as many friends there among ship-carpen- 
ters, excisemen, longshoremen, jack-tars, and what not, 
as in Bayswater and Belgravia (or Bloomsbury). 

He was especially fond of frequenting sing-songs, or 



237 



" free-and-easys," where good, hard-working fellows 
met of an evening to relax and smoke and drink and 
sing — round a table well loaded with steaming tum- 
blers and pewter pots, at one end of which sits Mr. 




THE MOON-DIAL ' 



Chairman in all his glory, and at the other " Mr. Vice." 
They are open to any one who can afford a pipe, a 
screw of tobacco, and a pint of beer, and who is will- 
ing to do his best and sing a song. 

iS'o introduction is needed ; as soon as any one has 
seated himself and made himself comfortable, Mr. 
Chairman taps the table with his long clay pipe, begs 
for silence, and says to his vis-a-vis: "Mr. Vice, it 
strikes me as the gen'l'man as is just come in 'as got a 



238 

singing face. Per'aps, Mr. Yice, you'll be so very kind 
as juster harsk the aforesaid genTman to oblige us 
with a 'armony." 

Mr. Yice then puts it to the new-comer, who, thus 
appealed to, simulates a modest surprise, and finally 
professes his willingness, like Mr. Barkis ; then, clear- 
ing his throat a good many times, looks up to the ceil- 
ing, and after one or two unsuccessful starts in differ- 
ent keys, bravely sings " Kathleen Mavourneen," let us 
say — perhaps in a touchingly sweet tenor voice : 

" Kathleen jVIavoiirneen, the gry dawn is brykin', 
The 'orn of the 'unter is 'card on the 'ill." . . . 

And Little Billee didn't mind the dropping of all these 
aitches if the voice was sympathetic and well in tune, 
and the sentiment simple, tender, and sincere. 
Or else, with a good rolling jingo bass, it was, 

" 'Earts o' hoak are our ships ; 'earts o' hoak are our men ; 
And we'll fight and we'll conkwer agen and agen !" 

And no imperfection of accent, in Little Billee's esti- 
mation, subtracted one jot from the manly British 
pluck that found expression in these noble sentiments 
— nor added one tittle to their swaggering, blatant, 
and idiotically aggressive vulgarity ! 

Well, the song finishes with general applause all 
round. Then the chairman says, " Your 'ealth and 
song, sir !" And drinks, and all do the same. 

Then Mr. Yice asks, " What shall we 'ave the pleas- 
ure of saying, sir, after that very nice 'armony ?" 

And the blushing vocalist, if he knows the ropes, 



240 

replies, " A roast leg o' mutton in ISTewgate, and no- 
body to eat it !" Or else, " May 'im as is going up the 
'ill o' prosperity never meet a friend coming down !" 
Or else, " 'Ere's to 'er as shares our sorrers and doubles 
our joys !" Or else, " 'Ere's to 'er as shares our joys 
and doubles our expenses !" and so forth. 

More drink, more applause, and many 'ear, 'ears. 
And Mr. Vice says to the singer : " You call, sir. 
Will you be so good as to call on some other gen'l'raan 
for a 'armony ?" And so the evening goes on. 

And nobody was more quickly popular at such 
gatherings, or sang better songs, or proposed more 
touching sentiments, or filled either chair or vice-chair 
with more grace and dignity than Little Billee. Not 
even Dodor or 1' Zouzou could have beaten him at that. 

And he was as happy, as genial, and polite, as much 
at his ease, in these humble gatherings as in the gilded 
saloons of the great, where grand-pianos are, and hired 
accompanists, and highly -paid singers, and a good 
deal of talk while they sing. 

So his powers of quick, wide, universal sympathy 
grew and grew, and made up to him a little for his 
lost power of being specially fond of special individ- 
uals. For he made no close friends among men, and 
ruthlessly snubbed all attempts at intimacy — all ad- 
vances towards an affection which he felt he could not 
return ; and more than one enthusiastic admirer of his 
talent and his charm was forced to acknowledge that, 
with all his gifts, he seemed heartless and capricious ; 
as ready to drop you as he had been to take you up. 

He loved to be wherever he could meet his kind, 
high or low ; and felt as happy on a penny steamer 



241 

as on the yacht of a milHonaire — on the crowded knife- 
board of an omnibus as on the box-seat of a nobleman's 
drag — happier ; he Uked to feel the warm contact of 
his fellow-man at either shoulder and at his back, and 
didn't object to a little honest grime ! And I think all 
this genial caressing love of his kind, this depth and 
breath of human sympathy, are patent in all his work. 

On the whole, however, he came to prefer for society 
that of the best and cleverest of his own class — those 
Avho live and prevail by the professional exercise of 
their own specially trained and highly educated wits, 
the skilled workmen of the brain — from the Lord 
Chief-Justice of England downward — the salt of the 
earth, in his opinion : and stuck to them. 

There is no class so genial and sympathetic as our 
own^ in the long-run — even if it be but the criminal 
class ! none where the welcome is likely to be so genu- 
ine and sincere, so easy to win, so difficult to outstay, 
if we be but decently pleasant and .successful ; none 
where the memory of us will be kept so green (if we 
leave any memory at all !). 

So Little Billee found it expedient, when he wanted 
rest and play, to seek them at the houses of those 
whose rest and play were like his own — little halts in 
a seeming happy life-journey, full of toil and strain 
and endeavor ; oases of sweet water and cooling shade, 
where the food was good and plentiful, though the 
tents might not be of cloth of gold ; where the talk 
was of something more to his taste than court or sport 
or narrow party politics ; the new beauty ; the com- 
ing match of the season ; the coming ducal conversion 
to Rome ; the last elopement in high life — the next ! 

16 



343 

and where the music was that of the greatest music- 
makers that can be, who found rest and play in mak- 
ing better music for love than they ever made for 
hire — and were listened to as they should be, with 
understanding and religious silence, and all the fervent 
gratitude they deserved. 

There were several such houses in London then — 
and are still — thank Heaven ! And Little Billee had 
his little billet there — and there he was wont to drown 
himself in waves of lovely sound, or streams of clever 
talk, or rivers of sweet feminine adulation, seas! 
oceans! — a somewhat relaxing bath! — and forget for 
a while his everlasting chronic plague of heart-insensi- 
bility, which no doctor could explain or cure, and to 
which he was becoming gradually resigned — as one 
does to deafness or blindness or locomotor ataxia — 
for it had lasted nearly five years ! But now and 
again, during sleep, and in a blissful dream, the lost 
power of loving, — of loving mother, sister, friend — 
would be restored to him ; just as with a blind man 
who sometimes dreams he has recovered his sight ; 
and the joy of it would wake him to the sad reality : 
till he got to know, even in his dream, that he was 
only dreaming, after all, whenever that priceless boon 
seemed to be his own once more — and did his utmost 
not to wake. And these were nights to be marked 
with a white stone, and remembered ! 

And nowhere was he happier than at the houses of 
the great surgeons and physicians who interested 
themselves in his strange disease. When the Little 
Billees of this world fall ill, the great surgeons and 
physicians (like the great singers and musicians) do 



243 

better for them, out of mere love and kindness, than 
for the princes of the earth, who pay them thousand- 
guinea fees and load them with honors. 

And of all these notable London houses none was 
pleasanter than that of Corneljs the great sculptor, 
and Little Billee was such a favorite in that house 
that he was able to take his friends Taffy and the 
Laird there the very day they came to London. 

First of all they dined together at a delightful little 
Franco-Italian pothouse near Leicester Square, where 
they had bouillabaisse (imagine the Laird's dehght), 
and spaghetti, and a poulet roti, which is such a differ- 
ent affair from a roast fowl ! and salad, Avhich Taffy 
was allowed to make and mix himself; and they all 
smoked just where they sat, the moment they had swal- 
lowed their food — as had been their way in the good 
old Paris days. 

That dinner was a happy one for Taffy and the 
Laird, Avith their Little Billee apparently unchanged 
— as demonstrative, as genial, and caressing as ever, 
and with no swagger to speak of ; and with so many 
things to talk about that were new to them, and of 
snch delightful interest ! They also had much to say 
— but they didn't say very much about Paris, for fear 
of waking up Heaven knows what sleeping dogs ! 

And every now and again, in the midst of all this 
pleasant foregathering and communion of long-parted 
friends, the pangs of Little Billee's miserable mind- 
malady w^ould shoot through him like poisoned arrows. 

He would catch himself thinking how fat and fussy 
and serious about trifles Taffy had become ; and what 



244 

a shiftless, feckless, futile duffer was the Laird ; and 
how greedy they both were, and how red and coarse 
their ears and gills and cheeks grew as they fed, and 
how shiny their faces ; and how little he would care, 
try as he might, if they both fell down dead under 
the table ! And this would make him beliave more 
caressingly to them, more genially and demonstrative- 
ly than ever — for he knew it was all a grewsome phys- 
ical ailment of his own, which he could no more help 
than a cataract in his eye ! 

Then, catching sight of his own face and form in a 
mirror, he would curse himself for a puny, misbegot- 
ten shrimp, an imp — an abortion — no bigger, by the 
side of the herculean Taffy or tlie burly Laird of Cock- 
pen, than six-pennorth o' half-pence : a wretched little 
overrated follower of a poor trivial craft — a mere light 
amuser ! For wlTat did pictures matter, or whether 
they were good or bad, except to the triflers who 
painted them, the dealers who sold them, the idle, un- 
educated, purse-proud fools who bouglit them and 
stuck them up on their walls because they were told ! 

And he felt that if a dynamite shell were beneath 
the table where they sat, and its fuse were smoking 
under their very noses, he would neither wish to warn 
his friends nor move himself. He didn't care a d ! 

And all this made him so lively and brilliant in his 
talk, so fascinating and droll and witty, that Taffy and 
the Laird wondered at the improvement success and 
the experience of life had wrought in him, and mar- 
velled at the happiness of his lot, and almost found it 
in their warm, affectionate hearts to feel a touch of 
envy ! 



246 

Oddly enough, in a brief flash of silence, " entre la 
poire et le fromage," they heard a foreigner at an ad- 
joining table (one of a very noisy group) exclaim : 
" Mais quand je vous dis que jTai entendue, moi, la 
Svengali ! et mome qu'elle a chante Tlmpromptu de 
Chopin absolument comme si c'etait un piano qu'on 
jouait ! voyons ! . . ." 

"Farceur! la bonne blague!" said another — and 
then the conversation became so noisily general it was 
no good listening an}' more. 

" Svengali ! how funny that name should turn up ! 
I wonder what's become of our Svengali, by-the-way ?" 
observed Taflfy. 

"I remember A/.s playing Chopin's Impromptu," 
said Little Billee ; " what a singular coincidence !" 

There were to be more coincidences that night ; it 
never rains them but it pours ! 

So our three friends finished their coffee and liq- 
ueured up, and went to Cornelys's, three in a han- 
som — 

" Like Mars, 
A-smokin' their poipes and cigyars." 

Sir Louis Cornelys, as everybody knows, lives in a 
palace on Campden Hill, a house of many windows; 
and whichever window he looks out of, he sees Ids 
own garden and very little else. In spite of his eighty 
years, he works as hard as ever, and his hand has lost 
but little of its cunning. But he no longer gives those 
splendid parties that made him almost as famous a 
host as he was an artist. 

When his beautiful wife died he shut himself up 



248 

from the world ; and now he never stirs out of his 
house and grounds except to fulfil his duties at the 
Royal Academy and dine once a year with the Queen. 

It was very different in the early sixties. There was 
no pleasanter or more festiv^e house than his in London, 
winter or summer — no lordlier host than he — no more 
irresistible hostesses than Lady Cornely's and her love- 
ly daughters ; and if ever music had a right to call 
itself divine, it was there you heard it — on late Sat- 
urday nights during the London season — when the for- 
eign birds of song come over to reap their harvest 
in London Town. 

It was on one of the most brilliant of these Satur- 
day nights that Taffy and the Laird, chaperoned by 
Little Billee, made their debut at Mechelen Lodge, and 
were received at the door of the immense music-room 
by a tall, powerfid man with splendid eyes and a gray 
beard, and a small velvet cap on his head — and by a 
Greek matron so beautiful and stately and magnifi- 
cently attired that they felt inclined to sink them on 
their bended knees as in the presence of some over- 
whelming Eastern royalty — -and were only prevented 
from doing so, perhaps, by the simple, sweet, and cord- 
ial graciousness of her welcome. 

And whom should they be shaking hands with next 
but Antony, Lorrimer, and the Greek — with each a 
beard and mustache of nearly five years' growth ! 

But they had no time for much exuberant greeting, 
for there was a sudden piano crash — and then an 
immediate silence, as though for pins to drop — and 
Signor Giuglini and the wondrous maiden Adelina 
Patti sang the Miserere out of Signor Verdi's most 



249 

famous opera — to the delight of all but a few very 
superior ones who had just read Mendelssohn's letters 
(or misread them) and despised Itahan music; and 
thought cheaply of " mere virtuosity," either vocal or 
instrumental. 

When this was over, Little Billee pointed out all the 
lions to his friends — from the Prime-Minister down to 
the present scribe — who was right glad to meet them 
again and talk of auld lang syne, and present them to 
the daughters of the house and other charming ladies. 

Then Roucouly, the great French barytone, sang 
Durien's favorite song, 

" Plaisir d'amour nc dure qu'un moment; 
Chagrin d'amour dure toiite la vie. ..." 

with quite a little drawing-room voice— but quite as 
divinely as he had sung " Nocil, noel," at the Madeleine 
in full blast one certain Christmas Eve our three friends 
remembered well. 

Then there was a violin solo by young Joachim, 
then as now the greatest violinist of his time ; and a 
solo on the piano-forte by Madame Schumann, his 
only peeress ! and these came as a wholesome check to 
the levity of those for whom all music is but an agree- 
able pastime, a mere emotional delight, in which the 
intellect has no part ; and also as a well-deserved hu- 
miliation to all virtuosi who play so charmingly that 
they make their listeners forget the master who in- 
vented the music in the lesser master who interprets it ! 

For these two — man and woman — the highest of 
their kind, never let you forget it was Sebastian Bach 



250 

they were playing — ^playing in absolute perfection, in 
absolute forgetfulness of themselves — so that if you 
weren't up to Bach, you didn't have a very good 
time ! 

But if you were (or wished it to be understood or 
thought you were), you seized your opportunity and 
you scored ; and by the earnestness of your rapt and 
tranced immobility, and the stony, gorgon-like inten- 
sity of your gaze, 3'ou rebuked the friv^olous — as you 
had rebuked them before by the listlessness and care- 
lessness of your bored resignation to the Signorina 
Fatti's trills and fioritures, or M. Eoucouly's pretty 
little French mannerisms. 

And what added so much to the charm of this de- 
lightful concert was that the guests were not packed 
together sardinewise, as they are at most concerts ; 
they were comparatively few and well chosen, and 
could get up and walk about and talk to their friends 
between the pieces, and wander off into other rooms 
and look at endless beautiful things, and stroll in the 
lovely grounds, by moon or star or Chinese - lantern 
light. 

And there the frivolous could sit and chat and laugh 
and flirt when Bach was being played inside ; and the 
earnest wander up and down together in soul-commun- 
ion, through darkened walks and groves and alleys 
where the sound of French or Italian warblings could 
not reach them, and talk in earnest tones of the great 
Zola, or Guy de Maupassant and Pierre Loti, and ex- 
ult in beautiful English over the inferiority of English 
literature, English art, English music, English every- 
thing else. 



2r,i 

For these high-minded ones who can only bear the 
sight of classical pictures and the sound of classical 
music do not necessarily read classical books in any 
language — no Shakespeares or Dantes or Molieres or 
Goethes for them. They know a trick worth two of 
that ! 

And the mere fact that these three immortal 
French writers of light books I have just named had 
never been heard of at this particular period doesn't 
very much matter; they had cognate predecessors 
whose names I happen to forget. Any stick will do 
to beat a dog with, and history is always repeating 
itself. 

Feydeau, or Flaubert, let us say — or for those who 
don't know French and cultivate an innocent mind, 
Miss Austen (for to be dead and buried is almost as 
good as to be French and immoral !) — and Sebastian 
Bach, and Sandro Botticelli — that all the arts should 
be represented. These names are rather discrepant, 
but they made very good sticks for dog-beating ; and 
with a thorough knowledge and appreciation of these 
(or the semblance thereof), you were well equipped in 
those days to hold your own among the elect of in- 
tellectual London circles, and snub the philistine to 
rights. 

Then, very late, a tall, good-looking, swarthy for- 
eigner came in, with a roll of music in his hands, and 
his entrance made quite a stir; you heard all round, 
" Here's Glorioli," or " Ecco Glorioli," or " Voici Glo- 
rioli,'' till Glorioli got on your nerves. And beauti- 
ful ladies, ambassadresses, female celebrities of all 
kinds, fluttered up to him and cajoled and fawned ;— 



253 

as Svengali would have said, " Prinzessen, Comtessen, 
Serene English Altessen !" — and they soon forgot 
their Highness and their Serenity ! 

For with very little pressing Glorioli stood up on 
the platform, with his accompanist by his side at the 
piano, and in his hands a sheet of music, at which he 
never looked. He looked at the beautiful ladies, and 
ogled and smiled ; and from his scarcely parted, moist, 
thick, bearded lips, which he always licked before sing- 
ing, there issued the most ravishing sounds that had 
ever been heard from throat of man or woman or boy ! 
He could sing both high and low and soft and loud, 
and the frivolous were bewitched, as was only to 
be expected; but even the earnestest of all, caught, 
surprised, rapt, astounded, shaken, tickled, teased, 
harrowed, tortured, tantalized, aggravated, seduced, 
demoralized, corrupted into naturalness, forgot to dis- 
semble their delight. 

And Sebastian Bach (the especially adored of all 
really great musicians, and also, alas ! of many prig- 
gish outsiders who don't know a single note and can't 
remember a single tune) was well forgotten for the 
niffht ; and who were more enthusiastic than the two 
great players who had been playing Bach that even- 
ing? For these, at all events, were broad and catlio- 
lic and sincere, and knew what was beautiful, what- 
ever its kind. 

It was but a simple little song that Glorioli sang, as 
light and pretty as it could Avell be, almost worthy of 
the words it was written to, and the words are De 
Musset's ; and I love them so much I cannot resist 
the temptation of setting them down here, for the 



254 

mere sensuous delight of writing them, as though I 
had just composed them myself : 

"Bonjour, Suzon, ma fleur des bois I 
Es-tu toujours la plus jolie ? 
Je reviens, tel que tu me vcis, 

D'un grand voyage en Italie ! 
Du paradis j'ai fait le tour — 
J'ai fait des vers — j'ai fait ramour. . , e 
Mais que t'importe ! 
Mais que t'importe ! 
Je passe devaut ta maison : 
Ouvre ta porte ! 
Ouvre ta porte ! 
Bonjour, Suzon ! 

" Je t'ai vue au temps des lilas. 

Ton coeur joyeux venait d'eclore, 
Et tu disais : ' je ne veux pas, 

Je ne veux pas qu'on m'aime encore.' 
Qu'as-tu fait depuis nion depart ? 
Qui part trop tot rcvient trop tard. 
Mais que m'importe ? 
Mais que m'importe ? 
Je passe devant ta maison : 
Ouvre ta porte ! 
Ouvre ta porte ! 
Bonjour, Suzon!" 

And when it began, and while it lasted, and after it 
was over, one felt really sorry for all the other sing- 
ers. And nobody sang any more that night ; for Glo- 
rioli was tired, and wouldn't sing again, and none 
were bold enough or disinterested enough to sing 
after him. 

Some of my readers may remember that meteoric 
bird of song, who, though a mere amateur, would 



ass 

condescend to sing for a hundred guineas in the 
saloons of the great (as Monsieur Jourdain sold cloth); 
who would sing still better for love and glory in the 
studios of his friends. 

For Glorioli — the biggest, handsomest, and most 
distinguished-looking Jew that ever was — one of the 
Sephardim (one of tli<f Seraphim !) — hailed from Spain, 
where he was junior partner in the great firm of 
Morales, Perales, Gonzales & Glorioli, wine -mer- 
chants, Malaga. lie travelled for his own firm; his 
wine was good, and he sold much of it in England. 
But his voice would bring him far more gold in the 
month he spent here ; for his wines have been 
equalled — even surpassed — • but there was no voice 
like his anywhere in the world, and no more fin- 
ished singer. 

Anyhow, his voice got into Little Billee's head more 
than any wine, and the boy could talk of nothing else 
for days and weeks ; and was so exuberant in his ex- 
pressions of delight and gratitude that the great sing- 
er took a real fancy to him (especially when he was 
told that this fervent boyish admirer was one of the 
greatest of English painters) ; and as a mark of his 
esteem, privately confided to him after supper that 
every century two human nightingales were born — 
only two ! a male and a female ; and that he, Glo- 
rioli, was the representative " male rossignol of this 
soi-disant dix-neuvieme siecle." 

" I can well believe that ! And the female, your 
mate that should be — la 7'ossignoUe, if there is such a 
word ?" inquired Little Billee. 

" Ah ! mon ami ... it was Alboni till la petite 



256 

Adelina Patti came out a year or two ago ; and now 
it is ^tj SvengalV 

"LaSvengali?" 

" Oui, mon f y ! You will hear her some day — et 
vous m'en direz des nouvelles !" 

" Why, you don't mean to say that she's got a bet- 
ter voice than Madame Alboni V 

"Mon ami, an apple is an excellent thing — until 
you have tried a peach ! Her voice to that of Alboni 
is as a peach to an apple — I give you my word of 
honor ! but bah ! the voice is a detail. It's what she 
does with it — it's incredible ! it gives one cold all down 
the back ! it drives you mad ! it makes you weep hot 
tears by the spoonful ! Ah ! the tear, mon fy ! tenez ! 
I can draw everything but that! Qa n'est pas dans 
mes cordes! /can only madden with love! But la 
Svengali ! . . . And then, in the middle of it all, 
prrrout ! . . . she makes you laugh ! Ah ! le beau rire ! 
faire rire avec des larmes plein les yeux — voila qui me 
passe! . . . Mon ami, when I heard her it made me 
swear that even / would never try to sing any more 
— it seemed too absurd ! and I kept my word for a 
month at least— and you know, je sais ce que je vaux, 
moi !" 

"You are talking of la Svengali, I bet," said Signor 
Spartia. 

" Oui, parbleu ! You have heard her?" 

" Yes — at Vienna last winter," rejoined the great- 
est sino^ino'-master in the world. " J'en suis fou ! he- 
las ! I thought / could teach a woman how to sing 
till I heard that blackguard Svengali's pupil. He has 
married her, they say !" 




A HUMAN NIUUTINUALK 



258 

"That Uachguard Svengali!" exclaimed Little Bil- 
lee , . . "why, that must be a Svengali I knew in 
Paris — a famous pianist ! a friend of mine !" 

" That's the man ! also une fameuse crapule (sauf 
vot' respect) ; his real name is Adler ; his mother was 
a Polish singer; and he was a pupil at the Leipsic 
Conservatorio. But he's an immense artist, and a 
great singing-master, to teach a woman like that ! and 
such a woman ! belle comme un ange — mais bete 
comme un pot. I tried to talk to her — all she can say 
is ' ja wohl,' or " doch,' or ' nein,' or ' soh ' ! not a word 
of English or French or Italian, though she sings 
them, oh! but divinely! It is '■ il lei canto'' come 
back to the world after a hundred years. . . ." 

" But what voice is it ?" asked Little Billee. 

" Every voice a mortal woman can have — three oc- 
taves — four ! and of such a quality that people who 
can't tell one tune from another cry with pleasure at 
the mere sound of it directly they hear her ; just like 
anybody else. Everything that Paganini could do 
with his violin she does with her voice — only better 
— and what a voice ! un vrai baume !" 

" Now I don't mind petting zat you are schbeaking 
of la Sfencali," said Herr Kreutzer, the famous com- 
poser, joining in. " Quelle merfeille, hein ? I heard 
her in St. Betersburg, at ze Vinter Balace. Ze vomen 
all vent mat, and pulled off zeir bearls and tiamonts 
and kave zem to her — vent town on zeir knees and 
gried and gissed her hants. She tit not say vun vort ! 
She tit not efen schmile ! Ze men schnifelled in ze 
gorners, and looked at ze bictures, and tissempled — 
efen I, Johann Kreutzer ! efen ze Emperor !" 



259 

" You're joking-/' said Little Billee. 

" My vrent, I neffer choke ven I talk apout zinging. 
You vill hear her zum ta}' yourzellof, and you vill 
acree viz me zat zere are two classes of beoble who 
zing. Ill ze vun class, la Sfencali ; in ze ozzer, all ze 
ozzer zingers !" 

" And does she sing good music ?" 

" I ton't know. All music is koot ven she zings it. 
I forket ze zong ; I can only sink of ze zinger. Any 
koot zinger can zing a peautiful zong and kif bleasure, 
I zubboce ! But I voot zooner hear la Sfencali zing a 
scale zan anypotty else zing ze most peautiful zong in 
ze vorldt — efen vun of my own ! Zat is berhaps how 
zung ze crate Italian zingers of ze last century. It vas 
a lost art, and she has found it ; and she must haf pecun 
to zing pefore she pecan to schpeak — or else she voot 
not haf hat ze time to learn all zat she knows, for she 
is not yet zirty ! She zings in Paris in Ogdoper, Gott 
sei dank ! and gums here after Christmas to zing at 
Trury Lane. ChuUien kifs her ten sousand bounts!" 

" I wonder, now ! Why, that must be the Avoman 
I heard at Warsaw two years ago — or three," said 
young Lord Witlow. " It was at Count Siloszech's. 
He'd heard her sing in the streets, with a tall, black- 
bearded ruffian, who accompanied her on a guitar, 
and a little fiddling gypsy fellow. She was a hand- 
some woman, with hair down to her knees, but stupid 
as an owl. She sang at Siloszech's, and all the fel- 
lows went mad and gave her their watches and dia- 
mond studs and gold scarf-pins. By gad ! I never 
heard or saw anything like it. I don't know much 
about music myself — couldn't tell ' God Save the 



260 

Queen ' from ' Pop Goes the Weasel,' if the people 
didn't get up and stand and take their hats off ; but I 
was as mad as the rest — why, I gave her a little Ger- 
man silver vinaigrette I'd just bought for my wife; 
hanged if I didn't — and I was only just married, you 
know ! It's the peculiar twang of her voice, I sup- 
pose !" 

And hearing all this. Little Billee made up his 
mind that life had still something in store for him, 
since he would some day hear la Svengali. Anyhow, 
he wouldn't shoot himself till then I 

Thus the night wore itself away. The Prinzessen, 
Comtessen, and Serene English Altessen (and other 
ladies of less exalted rank) departed home in cabs and 
carriages ; and hostess and daughters went to bed. 
Late sitters of the ruder sex supped again, and smoked 
and chatted and listened to comic songs and recita- 
tions by celebrated actors. Noble dukes hobnobbed 
with low comedians ; world-famous painters and sculp- 
tors sat at the feet of Hebrew capitalists and aitchless 
millionaires. Judges, cabinet ministers, eminent phy- 
sicians, and warriors and philosophers saw Sunday 
morning steal over Campden Hill and through the 
many windows of Mechelen Lodge, and listened to the 
pipe of half- awakened birds, and smelled the fresh- 
ness of the dark summer dawn. And as Taffy and 
the Laird walked home to the Old Hummums by day- 
light, they felt that last night was ages ago, and that 
since then they had foregathered with " much there 
was of the best in London." And then they reflected 
that "much there was of the best in London" were 



^61 

still strangers to them — except by reputation — for 
there had not been time for many introductions : and 
this had made them feel a little out of it ; and they 
found they hadn't had such a very good time after 
all. And there were no cabs. And they were tired, 
and their boots were tight. 

And the last they had seen of Little Billee before 
leaving was a glimpse of their old friend in a corner 
of Lady Cornelys's boudoir, gravely playing cup-and- 
ball with Fred Walker for sixpences— both so rapt in 
the game that they were unconscious of anything else, 
and both playing so well (with either hand) that they 
might have been professional champions ! 

And that saturnine young sawbones, Jakes Talboys 
(now Sir Jakes, and one of the most genial of Her 
Majesty's physicians), who sometimes after supper and 
champagne was given to thoughtful, sympathetic, and 
acute observation of his fellow-men, remarked to the 
Laird in a whisper that was almost convivial : " Rather 
an enviable pair ! Their united ages amount to forty- 
eight or so, their united weights to about fifteen stone, 
and they couldn't carry you or me betv^een them. 
But if you were to roll all the other brains that have 
been under this roof to-night into one, you wouldn't 
reach the sum of their united genius. ... I wonder 
which of the two is the most unhappy !" 



The season over, the song-birds flown, summer on 
the wane, his picture, the " Moon-Dial," sent to Moses 
Lyon's (the picture-dealer in Conduit Street), Little 



262 

Billee felt the time had come to go and see his mother 
and sister in Devonshire, and make the sun shine 
twice as brightly for them during a month or so, and 
the dew fall softer! 

So one fine August morning found him at the Great 
Western Station — the nicest station in all London, I 
think — except the stations that book you to France 
and far away. 

It always seems so pleasant to be going west ! Lit- 
tle Billee loved that station, and often went there for 
a mere stroll, to watch the people starting on their 
westward way, following the sun towards Heaven 
knows what joys or sorrows, and envy them their 
sorrows or their joys — any sorrows or joys that were 
not merely physical, like a chocolate drop or a pretty 
tune, a bad smell or a toothache. 

And as he took a seat in a second-class carriage (it 
would be third in these democratic days), south corner, 
back to the engine, with Silas Jfa/mer, and Darwin's 
Origin of /Species (which he was reading for the third 
time), and Ptmc/i, and other literature of a lighter 
kind, to beguile him on his journey, he felt rather bit- 
terly how happy he could be if the little spot, or knot, 
or blot, or clot which paralyzed that convolution of 
his brain where he kept his affections could but be 
conjured away ! 

The dearest mother, the dearest sister in the world, 
in the dearest little sea-side village (or town) that ever 
was ! and other dear people— especially Alice, sweet 
Alice with hair so brown, his sister's friend, the simple, 
pure, and pious maiden of his boyish dreams : and 
himself, but for that wretched little kill-joy cerebral 




CUP-AND-BALL 



264 

occlusion, as sound, as healthy, as full of life and en- 
ergy as he had ever been ! 

And when he wasn't reading Silas Marner, or look- 
ing out of window at the flying landscape, and watch- 
ing it revolve round its middle distance (as it always 
seems to do), he was sympathetically taking stock of 
his fellow - passengers, and mildly envying them, one 
after another, indiscrimmately ! 

A fat, old, wheezy philistine, with a bulbous nose 
and only one eye, who had a plain, sickly daughter, to 
whom he seemed devoted, body and soul ; an old lady, 
who still wept furtively at recollections of the parting 
with her grandchildren, which had taken place at the 
station (they had borne up wonderfully, as grandchil- 
dren do) ; a consumptive curate, on the opposite cor- 
ner seat by the window, whose tender, anxious wife 
(sitting by his side) seemed to have no thoughts in the 
whole world but for him ; and her patient eyes were 
his stars of consolation, since he turned to look into 
them almost every minute, and always seemed a little 
the happier for doing so. There is no better star- 
gazing than that ! 

So Little Billee gave her up his corner seat, that the 
poor sufferer might have those stars where he could 
look into them comfortably without turning his head. 

Indeed (as was his wont with everybody). Little Bil- 
lee made himself useful and pleasant to his fellow- 
travellers in many ways — so man}" that long before 
they had reached their respective journeys' ends they 
had almost grown to love him as an old friend, and 
longed to know who this singularly attractive and 
brilliant youth, this genial, dainty, benevolent little 



265 

princekin could possibly be, who was dressed so fash- 
ionably, and yet went second class, and took such kind 
thought of others ; and they wondered at the happi- 
ness that must be his at merely being alive, and told 
him more of their troubles in six hours than they told 
many an old friend in a year. 

But he told them nothing about himself — that self 
he was so sick of — and left them to wonder. 

And at his own journey's end, the farthest end of 
all, he found his mother and sister waiting for him, 
in a beautiful little pony-carriage — his last gift — and 
with them sweet Alice, and in her eyes, for one brief 
moment, that unconscious look of love surprised which 
is not to be forgotten for years and years and years — 
which can only be seen by the eyes that meet it, and 
wdiich, for the time it lasts (just a flash), makes all 
women's eyes look exactly the same (I'm told) : and 
it seemed to Little Billee that, for the twentieth part 
of a second, Alice had looked at him with Trilby's 
eyes — or his mother's, when that he was a little tiny 
boy. 

It aU but gave him the thrill he thirsted for ! An- 
other twentieth part of a second, perhaps, and his 
brain - trouble would have melted away ; and Little 
Billee would have come into his own again — the king- 
dom of love ! 

A beautiful human eye ! Any beautiful eye — a 
dog's, a deer's, a donkey's, an owl's even ! To think 
of all that it can look, and all that it can see ! all that 
it can even seem^ sometimes ! What a prince among 
gems ! what a star ! 

But a beautiful eye that lets the broad white light 



266 

of infinite space (so bewildering and garish and dif- 
fused) into one pure virgin heart, to be filtered there ! 
and lets it out again, duly warmed, softened, concen- 
trated, sublimated, focussed to a point as in a precious 
stone, that it may shed itself (a love-laden effulgence) 
into some stray fellow-heart close by — through pupil 
and iris, entre quatre-z-yeux — the very elixir of life ! 

Alas! that such a crown-jewel should ever lose its 
lustre and go blind ! 

Not so blind or dim, however, but it can still see 
well enough to look before and after, and inward and 
upward, and drown itself in tears, and yet not die ! 
And that's the dreadful pity of it. And this is a quite 
uncalled-for digression ; and I can't think why I should 
have gone out of my way (at considerable pains) to 
invent it ! In fact — 

" Of this here song, should I be axed the reason for to show, 
I don't exactly know, I don't exactly know ! 

But all my fancy dwells upon Nancy." . . . 

" How pretty Alice has grown, mother ! quite love- 
ly, I think! and so nice; but she was always as nice 
as she could be !" 

So observed Little Billee to his mother that even- 
ing as they sat in the garden and watched the cres- 
cent moon sink to the Atlantic. 

" Ah ! my darling Willie ! If you could only guess 
how happy you would make your poor old mammy 
by growing fond of Alice. . . And Blanche, too! 
what a joy for her /" 

" Good heavens ! mother. . . . Alice is not for the 
likes of 7716 ! She's for some splendid young Devon 



267 



squire, six foot bigh, and acred and whiskered within 
an inch of his Hfe ! . . ." 

" Ah, my darling Willie ! you are not of those who 
ask for love in vain. ... If you only knew how she 
believes in j^ou ! She al- 
most beats your poor old 
mammy at that /" 

And that night he 
dreamed of Alice — that 
he loved her as a sweet 
good woman should be 
loved ; and knew, even in 
his dream, that it was but 
a dream ; but, oh ! it was 
good ! and he managed 
not to wake ; and it was 
a night to be marked with 
a white stone ! And (still 
in his dream) she had 
kissed him, and healed 

him of his brain-trouble forever. But when he woke 
next morning, alas ! his brain - trouble was with him 
still, and he felt that no dream kiss would ever cure it 
— nothing but a real kiss from Alice's own pure lips ! 

And he rose thinking of Alice, and dressed and 
breakfasted thinking of her — and how fair she was, 
and how innocent, and how well and carefully trained 
up the way she should go — the beau ideal of a wife. . . . 
Could she possibly care for a shrimp like himself? 

For in his love of outward form he could not under- 
stand that any woman who had eyes to see should 
ever quite condone the signs of physical weakness in 




SWEET ALICE 



268 

man, in favor of any mental gifts or graces whatso- 
ever. 

Little Greek that he was, he worshipped the athlete, 
and opined that all women without exception — all 
English women especially — must see with the same 
eyes as himself. 

He had once been vain and weak enough to believe 
in Trilby's love (with a Taffy standing by — a careless, 
unsusceptible Taffy, who was like unto the gods of 
Olympus!) — and Trilby had given him up at a word, 
a hint — for all his frantic clinD^ing'. 

She would not have given up Taffy, pour si pen, 
had Taffy but lifted a little finger ! It is always " just 
whistle, and I'll como to you, my lad !" with the likes 
of Taffy ... but Taffy hadn't even wliistled ! Yet 
still he kept thinking of Alice — and he felt he couldn't 
think of her well enough till he went out for a stroll 
by himself on a sheep-trimmed down. So he took 
his pipe and his Darwin, and out he strolled into the 
early sunshine — up the green Red Lane, past the 
pretty church, Alice's father's church — and there, at 
the gate, patiently waiting for his mistress, sat Alice's 
dog — an old friend of his, whose welcome was a very 
warm one. 

Little Billee thought of Thackeray's lovely poem in 
Pendennis : 

"She comes — she's here — she's past! 
May heaven go with her ! . . ." 

Then he and the dog went on together to a little 
bench on the edg-e of the cliff — within sio:ht of Alice's 



269 

bedroom window. It was called "the Honeymoon- 
ers' Bench." 

"That look — that look— that look! Ah — but 
Trilby had looked like that, too! And there are 
many Taffys in Devon !" 

He sat himself down and smoked and gazed at the 
sea below, which the sun (still in the east) had not 
yet filled with glare and robbed of the lovely sap- 
phire-blue, shot with purple and dark green, that 
comes over it now and again of a morning on that 
most beautiful coast. 

There was a fresh breeze from the west, and the 
long, slow billows broke into creamier foam than ever, 
which reflected itself as a tender white gleam in the 
blue concavities of their shining shoreward curves as 
they came rolling in. The sky was all of turquoise 
but for the smoke of a distant steamer — a long thin 
horizontal streak of dun — and there were little brown 
or white sails here and there, dotting ; and the stately 
ships went on. . . . 

Little Billee tried hard to feel all this beauty with 
his heart as well as his brain — as he had so often 
done when a bo}'- — and cursed his insensibility out 
loud for at least the thousand and first time. 

Why couldn't these waves of air and water be 
turned into equivalent waves of sound, that he might 
feel them through the only channel that reached his 
emotions! That one joy was still left to him — but, 
alas ! alas ! he was only a painter of pictures — and not 
a maker of music ! 

He recited "Break, break, break," to Alice's dog, 
who loved him, and looked up into his face with sapi- 



270 

ent, affectionate eyes — and whose name, like that of 
so many dogs in fiction and so few in fact, was simplj'- 
Tray. For Little Billee was much given to mono- 
logues out loud, and profuse quotations from his fa- 
vorite bards. 

Everybody quoted that particular poem either men- 
tally or aloud when they sat on that particular bench 
— except a few old-fashioned people, who still said, 

" Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll !" 

or people of the very highest culture, who only quoted 
the nascent (and crescent) Robert iBrowning ; or peo- 
ple of no culture at all, who simply held their tongues 
— and only felt the more ! 

Tray listened silently. 

" Ah, Tray, the best thing but one to do with the 
sea is to paint it. The next best thing to that is to 
bathe in it. The best of all is to lie asleep at the bot- 
tom. How would you like that ? 

"'And on thy ribs the limpet sticks, 

And in thy heart the scrawl shall play. . . .'" 

Tray's tail became as a wagging point of interroga- 
tion, and he turned his head first on one side and then 
on the other — his eyes fixed on Little Billee's, his face 
irresistible in its genial doggy wistfulness. 

" Tray, what a singularly good listener you are — 
and therefore what singularly good manners you've 
got ! I suppose all dogs have !" said Little Billee ; and 
then, in a very tender voice, he exclaimed, 



271 

" Alice, Alice, Alice !" 

And Tray uttered a soft, cooing, nasal croon in his 
head register, though he was a barytone dog by nat- 
ure, with portentous, warlike chest-notes of the jingo 
order. 

" Tray, your mistress is a parson's daughter, and 
therefore twice as much of a mystery as any other 
woman in this puzzling world ! 

" Tray, if my heart weren't stopped with wax, like 
the ears of the companions of Ulysses when they rowed 
past the sirens — you've heard of Ulysses, Tray? he 
loved a dog — if my heart weren't stopped with wax, 
I should be deeply in love with your mistress ; per- 
haps she would marry me if I asked her — there's no 
accounting for tastes! — and I know enough of myself 
to know that I should make her a good husband — that 
I should make her happy — and I should make two 
other women happy besides. 

" As for myself personally, Tray, it doesn't very 
much matter. One good woman would do as well as 
another, if she's equally good-looking. You doubt it ? 
Wait till you get a pimple inside your bump of — your 
bump of — wherever you keep your fondnesses. Tray. 

"For that's what's the matter with me — a pimple — 
just a little clot of blood at the root of a nerve, and no 
bigger than a pin's point! 

" That's a small thing to cause such a lot of wretch- 
edness, and wreck a fellow's life, isn't it ? Oh, curse it, 
curse it, curse it — every day and all day long ! 

" And just as small a thing will take it away, I'm 
told ! 

" Ah ! grains of sand are small things — and so are 



272 



diamonds ! But diamond or grain of sand, only Alice 
has got that small thing ! Alice alone, in all the world, 
has got the healing touch for me now ; the hands, the 
lips, the eyes ! I know it — I feel it ! I dreamed it last 
night ! She looked me well in the face, and took my 
hand — both hands — and kissed me, eyes and mouth, 
and told me how she loved me. Ah ! what a dream 
it was ! And my little clot melted away like a snow- 
flake on the lips, and I was ray old self again, after 
many years — and all through that kiss of a pure 
woman. 

" I've never been kissed by a pure woman in my life 
— never ! except by my dear mother and sister ; and 
mothers and sisters don't count, when it comes to 
kissing. 

" Ah ! sweet physician that she is, and better than 
all ! It will all come back again with a rush, just as I 
dreamed, and we will have a good 
J I i«i ' ' MMi, time together, we three! . . . 

" But your mistress is a par- 
son's daughter, and believes 
everything she's been taught 
from a child, just as you do 
— at least, I hope so. And 
I like her for it — and 
you too. 

She has believed 

her father — will 

she ever belie v^e 

me, who think 

so differently ? 

" MAY HEAVEN GO WITH HER !" And if SllC dOCS, 




273 

will it be good for her? — and then, where will her 
father come in ? 

" Oh ! it's a bad thing to live, and no longer believe 
and trust in your father, Tray ! to doubt either his hon- 
esty or his intelligence. For he (with your mother to 
help) has taught you all the best he knows, if he has 
been a good father — till some one else comes and 
teaches you better — or worse ! 

"And, then, what are you to believe of what good 
still remains of all that early teaching — and how are 
you to sift the wheat from the chaff? . . . 

" Kneel undisturbed, fair saint ! I, for one, will nev- 
er seek to undermine thy faith in any father, on earth 
or above it ! 

" Yes, there she kneels in her father's church, her 
pretty head bowed over her clas})ed hands, her cloak 
and skirts falling in happy folds about her : I see it all! 

"And underneath, that poor, sweet, soft, pathetic 
thing of flesh and blood, the eternal woman — great 
heart and slender brain — forever enslaved or enslav- 
ing, never self-sufficing, never free . . . that dear, weak, 
delicate shape, so cherishable, so perishable, that I've 
had to paint so often, and know so well by heart ! and 
love . . . ah, how I love it ! Only painter-fellows and 
sculptor -fellows can ever quite know the fulness of 
that pure love. 

"There she kneels and pours forth her praise or 
plaint, meekly and duly. Perhaps it's for me she's 
praying ! 

" ' Leave tliou thy sister when she prays,' 
" She believes her poor little prayer will be heard 

18 



274 

and answered somewhere up aloft. The impossible 
will be done. She wants what she wants so badly, 
and prays for it so hard. 

" She believes — she believes — what doesnH she be- 
lieve, Tray ? 

" The world was made in six days. It is just six 
thousand years old. Once it all lay smothered under 
rain-water for many weeks, miles deep, because there 
were so many wicked people about somewhere down 
in Jude6', where they didn't know everything! A 
costly kind of clearance ! And tlien there was Noah, 
who wasnH wicked, and his most respectable family, 
and his ark — and Jonah and his whale — and Joshua 
and the sun, and what not. I remember it all, you 
see, and, oh ! such wonderful things that have hap- 
pened since ! And there's everlasting agony for those 
who don't believe as she does ; and yet she is happy, 
and good, and very kind ; for the mere thought of 
any live creature in pain makes her wretched ! 

" After all, if she believes in me, she'll believe in 
anything ; let her ! 

" Indeed, I'm not sure that it's not rather ungainly 
for a pretty woman not to believe in all these good 
old cosmic taradiddles, as it is for a pretty child not to 
believe in Little Red Riding-hood, and Jack and the 
Beanstalk, and Morgiana and tlie Forty Thieves ; we 
learn them at our mother's knee, and how nice they 
are ! Let us go on believing them as long as we can, 
till the child grows up and the woman dies and it's 
all found out. 

" Yes, Tray, I will be dishonest for her dear sake. I 
will kneel by her side, if ever I have the happy chance, 



275 

and ever after, night and morning, and all day long on 
Sundays if she wants me to ! What will I not do for 
that one pretty woman who believes in me f I will re- 
spect even that belief, and do my little best to keep it 
alive forever. It is much too precious an earthly boon 
for me to play ducks and drakes with. . . . 

"So much for Alice, Tray — your sweet mistress and 
mine. 

" But, then, there's Alice's papa — and that's another 
pair of sleeves, as Ave say in France. 

" Ought one ever to play at make-believe with a 
full-grown man for any consideration whatever — even 
though he be a parson, and a possible father-in-law ? 
There's a case of conscience for you ! 

"When I ask him for his daughter, as I must, and 
he asks me for my profession of faith, as he will, what 
can I tell him ? The truth ? 

" But, then, what will he say ? What allowances 
will he make foi' a poor little weak-kneed, well-mean- 
ing waif of a painter-fellow like me, whose only choice 
lay between Mr. Darwin and the Pope of Eorae, and 
who has chosen once and forever — and that long ago 
— before he'd ever even heard of Mr. Darwin's name. 

" Besides, why should he make allowances for me ? 
I don't for him. 1 think no more of a parson than he 
does of a painter-fellow — and that's precious little, I'm 
afraid. 

" What will he think of a man Avho says : 

"'Look here! the God of your belief isn't mine 
and never will be — but I love your daughter, and she 
loves me, and I'm the only man to make her happy !' 

" He's no Jephthah ; he's made of flesh and blood, 



276 

although he's a parson — and loves his daughter as 
much as Shylock loved his. 

" Tell me, Tray— thou that livest among parsons — 
what man, not being a parson himself, can guess how 
a parson would think, an average parson, confronted 
by such a poser as that ? 

" Does he, dare he, can he ever think straight or 
simply on any subject as any other man thinks, hedged 
in as he is by so many limitations ? 

" He is as shrewd, vain, worldly, self-seeking, am- 
bitious, jealous, censorious, and all the rest, as you or 
I, Tray — for all his Christian profession — and just as 
fond of his kith and kin ! 

" He is considered a gentleman — which perhaps you 
and I are not — unless we happen to behave as such; 
it is a condition of his noble calling. Perhaps it's in 
order to become a gentleman that he's become a par- 
son ! It's about as short a royal road as any to that 
enviable distinction — as short almost as her Majesty's 
commission, and much safer, and much less expensive 
— within reach of the sons of most fairly successful 
butchers and bakers and candlestick-makers. 

" While still a boy he has bound himself irrevocably 
to certain beliefs, which he will be paid to preserve 
and preach and enforce through life, and act up to 
through thick and thin — at all events, in the eyes of 
others — even his nearest and dearest — even the wife 
of his bosom. 

" They are his bread and butter, these beliefs — and 
a man mustn't quarrel Avith his bread and butter. But 
a parson must quarrel with those who don't believe as 
he tells them ! 




" ' so MUCH FOR ALICK, TRAY ' " 



"Yet a few years' thinking and reading and experi- 
ence of life, one would suppose, might possibly just 
shake his faith a little (just as though, instead of be- 
ing parson, he had been tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, 
gentleman, apothecary, ploughboy, thief), and teach 
him that many of these beliefs are simply childish — 
and some of them very wicked indeed — and most im- 
moral. 

"It is very wicked and most immoral to believe, or 
affect to believe, and tell others to believe, that the un- 
seen, unspeakable, unthinkable Immensity we're all 
part and parcel of, source of eternal, infinite, inde- 



378 

structible life and light and might, is a kind of wrath- 
ful, glorified, and self-glorifying' ogre in human shape, 
with human passions, and most inhuman hates — who 
suddenly made us out of nothing, one fine day — just 
for a freak — and made us so badly that we fell the 
next — and turned us adrift the day after — damned us 
from the very beginning — ah ovo — ah ovo usque ad 
malum — ha, ha! — and ever since! never gave us a 
chance ! 

" All-merciful Father, indeed ! "Why, the Prince of 
Darkness was an angel in comparison (and a gentle- 
man into the bargain). 

"Just think of it, Tray — a finger in every little 
paltry pie — an eye and an ear at every key-hole, even 
that of the larder, to catch us tripping, and find out if 
we're praising loud enough, or grovelling low enough, 
or fasting hard enougli — poor god-forsaken worms ! 

"And if we're naughty and disobedient, everlasting 
torment for us ; torture of so hideous a kind that we 
wouldn't inflict it on the basest criminal, not for one 
single moment ! 

" Or else, if we're good and do as we are bid, an 
eternity of bliss so futile, so idle, and so tame that we 
couldn't stand it for a week, but for thinking of its 
one horrible alternative, and of our poor brother for 
ever and ever roasting away, and howling for the 
drop of water he never gets. 

" Everlasting flame, or everlasting dishonor — noth- 
ing between ! 

"Isn't it ludicrous as well as pitiful — a thing to 
make one snigger through one's tears? Isn't it a 
grievous sin to believe in such things as these, and go 



379 

about teaching and preaching them, and being paid 
for it — a sin to be heavily chastised, and a shame? 
What a legacy ! 

" They were shocking bad artists, those conceited, 
narrow-minded Jews, those poor old doting monks 
and priests and bigots of the grew some, dark age of 
faith ! They couldn't draw a bit — no perspective, no 
chiaro-oscuro ; and it's a woful image they managed to 
evolve for us out of the depths of their fathomless 
ignjorance, in their zeal to keep us off all the forbidden 
fruit we're all so fond of, because we were built like 
that ! And by whom ? By our Maker, I suppose 
(who also made the forbidden fruit, and made it very 
nice — and put it so conveniently for you and me to 
see and smell and reach. Tray — and sometimes even 
pick, alas !). 

" And even at that it's a failure. Only the very 
foolish little birds are frightened into good behavior. 
The naughty ones laugh and wink at each other, and 
pull out its hair and beard when nobody's looking, and 
build their nests out of the s-traw it's stuffed with (the 
naughty little birds in black, especially), and pick up 
what they want under its very nose, and thrive un- 
commonly well ; and the good ones fly away out of 
sight ; and some day, perhaps, find a home in some 
happy, useful father-land far away, where the Father 
isn't a bit like this. Who knows ? 

"And' I'm one of the good little birds. Tray — at 
least, I hope so. And that unknown Father lives in 
me whether I will or no, and I love Him whether He 
be or not, just because I can't help it, and with the 
best and bravest love that can be — the perfect love 



280 

that believeth no evil, and seeketh no reward, and 
casteth out fear. For I'm His father as much as He's 
mine, since I've conceived the thought of Him after 
my own fashion ! 

"And He lives in you too, Tray — you and all your 
kind. Yes, good dog, 3'ou king of beasts, I see it in 
your eyes. . . . 

" Ah, bon Dieu Pere, le Dieu des bonnes gens ! 
Oh ! if we only knew for certain, Tray ! what mar- 
tyrdom would we not endure, you and I, with a hap- 
py smile and a grateful heart — for sheer love of such 
a father ! How little should we care for the things of 
this earth ! 

" But the poor parson? 

" He must willy-nilly go on believing, or affecting 
to believe, just as he is told, word for word, or else 
good-bye to his wife and children's bread and butter, 
his own preferment, perhaps even his very gentility — 
that gentility of which his Master thought so little, and 
he and his are apt to think so much — with possibly 
the Archbishopric of Canterbury at the end of it, the 
. baton de marechal that lies in every clerical knapsack. 

" What a temptation ! one is but human ! 

" So how can he be honest without believing certain 
things, to believe which (without shame) one must be 
as simple as a little child ; as, by-the-way, he is so clev- 
erly told to be in these matters, and so cleverly tells 
us — and so seldom is himself in any other matter 
whatever — his own interests, other people's affairs, 
' the world, the flesh, and the devil ! And that's clever 
of him too. . . . 

" And if he chooses to be as simple as a little child, 



281 

why shouldn't I treat him as a little child, for his own 
good, and fool him to the top of his little bent for his 
dear daughter's sake, that I may make her happy, and 
thereby him too ? 

"And if he's not quite so simple as all that, and 
makes artful little compromises with his conscience — 
for a good purpose, of course — why shouldn't I make 
artful little compromises with mine, and for a better 
purpose still, and try to get what I want in the way 
he does ? I want to marry his daughter far worse than 
he can ever want to live in a palace, and ride in a 
carriage and pair with a mitre on the panels. 

" If he cheats, why shouldn't I cheat too ? 

" If he cheats, he cheats everybody all round — the 
wide, wide world, and something wider and higher 
still that can't be measured, something in himself. / 
only cheat him ! 

"7/^ he cheats, he cheats for the sake of very worldly 
things indeed — tithes, honors, influence, power, au- 
thority, social consideration and respect — not to speak 
of bread and butter ! / only cheat for the love of a 
lady fair — and cheating for cheating, I like my cheat- 
ing best. 

" So, whether he cheats or not, I'll — 

"Confound it! what w^ould old Taffy do in such a 
case, I wonder? . . . 

" Oh, bother ! it's no good wondering w^hat old Taffy 
would do. 

" Taffy never wants to marry anyhodi/s daughter ; 
he doesn't even w^ant to paint her ! He only w^ants to 
paint his beastly ragamuffins and thieves and drunk- 
ards, and be left alone. 



283 

" Besides, Taffy's as simple as a little child himself, 
and couldn't fool any one, and wouldn't if he could — 
not even a parson. But if any one tries to fool him, 
my eyes ! don't he cut up rough, and call names, and 
kick up a sliindy, and even knock people down ! That's 
the worst of fellows like Taffy. They're too good for 
this world and too solemn. They're impossible, and 
lack all sense of humor. In point of fact, Taffy's a 
gentleman — poor fellow ! etj)uis voild ! 

"I'm not simple — worse luck; and I can't knock 
people down— I only wish I could! I can only paint 
them ! and not even that ' as they really are !' . . . Good 
old Taffy ! . . . 

" Faint heart never won fair lady ! 

"Oh, happy, happy thought — I'll be brave and 
win! 

" I can't knock people down, or do doughty deeds, 
but I'll be brave in my own little way — the only way 
I can. . . . 

" I'll simply lie through thick and thin — I must — I . 
will — nobody need ever be a bit the wiser! I can 
do more good by lying than by telling the truth, 
and make more deserving people happy, including my- 
self and the sweetest girl alive — the end shall justify 
the means: that's my excuse, my only excuse! and 
this lie of mine is on so stupendous a scale that it will 
have to last me for life. It's my only one, but its 
name is Lion ! and I'll never tell another as long as I 
live. 

" And now that I know what temptation really is, 
ril never think any harm of any parson any more . . . 
never, never, never !" 



283 

So the little man went on, as if he knew all about 
it, had found it all out for himself, and nobody else 
had ever found it out before ! and I am not responsible 
for his ways of thinking (which are not necessarily 
my own). 

It must be remembered, in extenuation, that he was 
very young, and not very wise: no philosopher, no 
scholar — just a painter of lovely pictures; only that 
and nothing more. Also, that he was reading Mr. 
Darwin's immortal book for the third time, and it was 
a little too strong for him ; also, that all this happened 
in the early sixties, long ere Religion had made up her 
mind to meet Science half-way, and hobnob and kiss 
and be friends. Alas! before such a lying down of 
the lion and the lamb can ever come to pass, Religion 
will have to perform a larger share of the journey than 
half, I fear ! 

Then, still carried away by the flood of his own 
eloquence (for he had never had such an innings as 
this, no such a listener), he again apostrophized the 
dog Tray, who had been growing somewhat inatten- 
tive (like the reader, perhaps), in language more beau- 
tiful than ever : 

"Oh, to be like you. Tray — and secrete love and 
good-will from morn till night, from night till morn- 
ing — like saliva, without effort! Avith never a mo- 
ment's cessation of flow, even in disgrace and humili- 
ation ! IIo\v much better to love than to be loved — 
to love as you do, my Tray — so warmly, so easily, so 
unremittingly — to forgive all wrongs and neglect and 
injustice so quickly and so well — and forget a kind- 
ness never! Lucky dog that you are ! 



284 

" 'Oh ! could I feel as I have felt, or be as I have been, 

Or weep as I could once have wept, o'er many a vanished scene, 
As springs in deserts found seem sweet, all bi'ackish tho' they 

be, 
So 'midst this withered waste of life those tears would flow 

to me !' 

"What do you think of those lines, Tray? I love 
them, because my mother taught them to me when I 
was about your age — six years old, or seven! and be- 
fore the bard who wrote them had fallen; like Lu- 
cifer, son of the morning ! Have you ever heard of 
Lord Bj'ron, Tray? He too, like Ulysses, loved a dog, 
and many people think that's about the best there is 
to be said of him nowadays ! Poor Ilurapty Diimptj'^ ! 
Such a swell as he once was! 'Not all the king's 
horses, nor all the — ' " 

Here Tray jumped up suddenly and bolted — he saw 
some one else he was fond of, and ran to meet him. It 
was the vicar, coming out of his vicarage. 

A very nice-looking vicar — fresh, clean, alert, well 
tanned by sun and wind and weather — a youngish 
vicar still; tall, stout, gentlemanlike, shrewd, kindly, 
wordly, a trifle pompous, and authoritative more than 
a trifle ; not much given to abstract speculation, and 
thinking fifty times more of any sporting and ortho- 
dox young country squire, well-inched and well-acred 
(and well-whiskered), than of all the painters in Chris- 
tendom. 

" ' When Greeks joined Greeks, then w^as the tug of 
war,' " thought Little Billee ; and he felt a little uncom- 
fortable. Alice's father had never loomed so big and 
impressive before, or so distressingly nice to look at. 



285 

" Welcome, my Apelles, to your ain countree, which 
is growing quite proud of you, I declare ! Young Lord 
Archie Waring was saying only last night that he 
wished he had half your talent ! He's crazed about 
painting, you know, and actually wants to be a painter 
himself! The poor dear old marquis is quite sore 
about it !" 

With this happy exordium the parson stopped and 
shook hands ; and they both stood for a while, looking 
seaward. The parson said the usual things about the 
sea — its blueness ; its grayness ; its greenness ; its 
beauty ; its sadness ; its treacher}^ 

" ' Who shall put forth on thee, 
Unfalhouiable sea !' " 

" Who indeed !" answered Little Billee, quite agree- 
ing. " I vote we don't, at all events." So they turned 
inland. 

The parson said the usual things about the land 
(from the country -gentleman's point of view), and the 
talk began to flow quite pleasantly, with quoting of 
the usual poets, and capping of quotations in the usual 
way — for they had known each other many years, 
both here and in London. Indeed, the vicar had once 
been Little Billee's tutor. 

And thus, amicably, they entered a small wooded 
hollow. Then the vicar, turning of a sudden his full 
blue gaze on tlie painter, asked, sternly : 

" What book's that you've got in your hand, Wil- 
lie?" 

"A — a — its the Origin of Sjyecies, by Charles Dar- 
win, I'm very f-f-fond of it. I'm reading it for the 



286 

third time. . . . It's very g-g-good. It accounts for 
things, you know." 

Then, after a pause, and still more sternly : 

"What place of worship do you most attend in Lon- 
don — especially of an evening, William V 

Then stammered Little Billee, all self-control forsak- 
ing him : 

"I d-d -don't attend any place of worship at all, 
morning, afternoon, or evening, I've long given up 
going to church altogether. I can only be frank with 
you ; I'll tell you why. . . ." 

And as they walked along the talk drifted on to 
very momentous subjects indeed, and led, unfortu- 
nately, to a serious falling out — for which probably 
both were to blame — and closed in a distressful way 
at the other end of the little wooded hollow — a way 
most sudden and unexpected, and quite grievous to re- 
late. When they emerged into the open the parson 
was quite white, and the jminter crimson. 

" Sir," said the parson, squaring himself up to more 
than his full height and breadth and dignity, his face 
big with righteous wrath, his voice full of strong men- 
ace — " sir, you're — you're a — you're a thief, sir, a thief! 
You're trying to roh me of my Saviour ! Never you 
dare to darken my door-step again !" 

" Sir," said Little Billee, with a bow, " if it comes to 
calling names, you're — you're a — no ; you're Alice's 
father ; and whatever else you are besides, I'm anoth- 
er for trying to be honest with a parson ; so good- 
morning to you." 

And each walked off in an opposite direction, stiff 
as pokers; and Tray stood between, looking first 




^^ 



' you're a thief, sir !' " 



288 

at one receding figure, then at the other, disconso- 
late. 

And thus Little Billee found out that he could no 
more lie than he could fly. And so he did not marry 
sweet Alice after all, and no doubt it was ordered for 
her good and his. But there was tribulation for many 
days in the house of Bagot, and for many months in 
one tender, pure, and pious bosom. 

And the best and the worst of it all is that, not very 
many years after, the good vicar — more fortunate than 
most clergymen who dabble in stocks and shares — 
grew suddenly very rich through a lucky speculation 
in Irish beer, and suddenly, also, took to thinking se- 
riously about things (as a man of business should) — 
more seriously than he had ever thought before. So 
at least the story goes in North Devon, and it is not so 
new as to be incredible. Little doubts grew into big 
ones — bio: doubts resolved themselves into downright 
negations. He quarrelled with his bishop ; he quar- 
relled with his dean ; he even quarrelled with his " poor 
dear old marquis," who died before there was time to 
make it up again. And finally he felt it his duty, in 
conscience, to secede from a Church which had become 
too narrow to hold him, and took himself and his be- 
lonffinfis to London, where at least he coukl breathe. 
But there he fell into a great disquiet, for the long 
habit of feeling himself always en evidence — of being 
looked up to and listened to without contradiction; 
of exercising influence and authority in spiritual mat- 
ters (and even temporal) ; of impressing women, es- 
peciall}'^, Avith his commanding presence, his fine so- 
norous voice, his lofty brow, so serious and smooth, his 



389 

soft, big, waving hands, which soon lost their country 
tan — all this had grown as a second nature to him, the 
breath of his nostrils, a necessity of his life. So he 
rose to be the most popular Unitarian preacher of his 
day, and pretty broad at that. 

But his dear daughter Alice, she stuck to the old 
faith, and married a venerable High-Church archdea- 
con, who very cleverly clutched at and caught her and 
saved her for himself just as she stood shivering on 
the very brink of Eome ; and they were neither happy 
nor unhappy together — U7i menage houvgeois^ ni heau 
ni laid, ni hon ni mauvais. And thus, alas ! the bond 
of religious sympathy, that counts for so much in 
united families, no longer existed between father and 
daughter, and the heart's division divided them. Ce 
que c'est que de nous / . . . Tlie pity of it ! 

And so no more of sweet Alice with hair so brown. 



Ipart Sijtb 

*"Vraiment, la reine aupres d'elle etait laide 
Quand, vers le soir, 
Elle passait siir le pont de Tolede 

En corset uoir ! 
Un cbapelet du temps de Charlemagne 
Ornait son cou. . . . 
La vent qui vient a travers la viontagne 
Me rendra foil ! 

"'Dausez, chantez, villageois ! la null tombe. . . 

Sabine, un jour, 
A tout donne — sa beaute de colombe, 

Et son amour — 
Pour I'anneau d'or du Comte de Soldagne, 

Pour un bijou. . 
La vent qui vient a tracers la inantugne 

M'a rendu fou !'" 

Behold our three musketeers of the brush once more 
reunited in Paris, famous, after long years. 

In emulation of the good Dumas, we will call it 
" cinq ans apres." It was a little more. 

Taffy stands for Porthos and Athos rolled into one, 
since he is big and good-natured, and strong enough 
to " assommer un homme d'un coup de poing," and also 
stately and solemn, of aristocratic and romantic ap- 
pearance, and not too fat — not too much ongbong- 
pwang, as the Laird called it — and also he does not 
dislike a bottle of wine, or even two, and looks as if 
he had a history. 



291 

The Laird, of course, is d' Artagnan, since he sells his 
pictures well, and by the time we are writing of has 
already become an Associate of the Royal Academy ; 
like Quentin Durward, this d' Artagnan was a Scots- 
man: 

" Ah, was na he a Roguy, this piper of Dundee 1" 

And Little Billee, the dainty friend of duchesses, 
must stand for Aramis, I fear ! It will not do to push 
the simile too far ; besides, unlike the good Dumas, 
one has a conscience. One does not play ducks and 
drakes with historical facts, or tamper with historical 
personages. And if Athos, Porthos & Co. are not 
historical by this time, I should like to know who 
are! 

Well, so are Taffy, the Laird, and Little Billee — toict 
ce qi/Nl y a de plus historlques ! 

Our three friends, well groomed, frock-coated, shirt- 
collared within an inch of their lives, duly scarfed and 
scarf-pinned, chimney-pot-hatted, and most beautifully 
trousered, and bal morally booted, or neatly spatted (or 
whatever was most correct at the time), are breakfast- 
ing together on coffee, rolls, and butter at a little round 
table in the huge court-yard of an immense caravan- 
serai, paved with asphalt, and covered in at the top 
with a glazed roof that admits the sun and keeps out 
the rain — and the air. 

A magnificent old man as big as Taffy, in black 
velvet coat and breeches and black silk stockings, and 
a large gold chain round his neck and chest, looks 
down like Jove from a broad flight of marble steps — 



^93 

as though to welcome the coming guests, who arrive 
in cabs and railway omnibuses through a huge arch- 
way on the boulevard, or to speed those who part 
through a lesser archway opening on to a side street. 

" Bon voyage, messieurs et dames !" 

At countless other little tables other voyagers are 
breakfasting or ordering breakfast ; or, having break- 
fasted, are smoking and chatting and looking about. 
It is a babel of tongues — the cheerfulest, busiest, mer- 
riest scene in the world, apparently the costly place of 
rendezvous for all wealthy Europe and America ; an 
atmosphere of bank-notes and gold. 

Already Taffy has recognized (and been recognized 
by) half a dozen old fellow-Crimeans, of unmistakable 
military aspect lilce himself; and three canny Scots- 
men have discreetly greeted the Laird ; and as for Lit- 
tle Billee, he is constantly jumping up from his break- 
fast and running to this table or that, drawn by some 
irresistible British smile of surprised and delighted 
female recognition: "What, you here? How nice! 
Come over to hear la Svengali, I suppose." 

At the top of the marble steps is a long terrace, with 
seats and people sitting, from which tall glazed doors, 
elaborately carved and gilded, give access to luxurious 
drawing-rooms, dining-rooms, reading-rooms, lavato- 
ries, postal and telegraph offices ; and all round and 
about are huge square green boxes, out of which grow 
tropical and exotic evergreens all the year round — 
with beautiful names that I have forgotten. And 
leaning against these boxes are placards announcing 
what theatrical or musical entertainments will take 
place in Paris that day or night ; and the biggest of 



2d4 

these placards (and the most fantastically decorated) 
informs the cosmopolite world that Madame Svengali 
intends to make her first appearance in Paris that very 
evening, at nine punctually, in the Cirque des Bashiba- 
zoucks. Rue St. Honore ! 

Our friends had only arrived the previous night, but 
they had managed to secure stalls a week beforehand. 
I^o places were any longer to be got for love or money. 
Many people had come to Paris on purpose to hear la 
Svengali — many famous musicians from England and 
everywhere else — but they would have to wait many 
days. 

The fame of her was like a rolling snowball that 
had been rolling all over Europe for the last two 
years — wherever there Avas snow to be picked up in 
the shape of golden ducats. 

Their breakfast over, Taffy, the Laird, and Little 
Billee, cigar in mouth, arm in arm, the huge Taffy in 
the middle {coinme autrefois), crossed the sunshiny 
boulevard into the shade, and went down the E-ue de 
la Paix, through the Place Vendome and the Rue 
Castiglione to the Rue de Rivoli — quite leisurely, and 
with a tender midriff-warming sensation of freedom 
and delight at almost every step. 

Arrived at the corner pastry-cook's, they finished 
the stumps of their cigars as they looked at the well- 
remembered show in the window; then they went in 
and had, Taffy a Madeleine, the Laird a baba, and 
Little Billee a Savarin — and each, I regret to say, a 
liqueur-glass of rhum de la Jamdique. 

After this they sauntered through the Tuileries 
Gardens, and by the quay to their favorite Pont des 



295 

Arts, and looked up and down the river — comme 
autrefois! 

It is an enchanting prospect at any time and under 
any circumstances ; but on a beautiful morning in mid 
October, when you haven't seen it for five years, and 
are still young! and almost every stock and stone that 
meets your eye, every sound, every scent, has some 
sweet and subtle reminder for you — 

Let the reader have no fear. I will not attempt to 
describe it. I shouldn't know where to begin (nor 
when to leave off !). 

N'ot but what many changes had been wrought ; 
many old landmarks were missing. And among them, 
as they found out a few minutes later, and much to 
their chagrin, the good old Morgue ! 

They inquired of a gardien de la 'pwix^ who told 
them that a new Morgue — " une bien jolie Morgue, ma 
foi !" — and much more commodious and comfortable 
than the old one, had been built beyond Notre Dame, 
a little to the right. 

" Messieurs devraient voir ca — on y est tres bien !" 

But Notre Dame herself was still there, and la 
Sainte Chapelle, and Le Pont Neuf, and the equestrian 
statue of Henri IV. Cest toujours ga / 

And as they gazed and gazed, each framed unto 
himself, mentall}^, a little picture of the Thames they 
had just left — and thought of Waterloo Bridge, and 
St. Paul's, and London — but felt no homesickness 
whatever, no desire to go back ! 

And looking down the river westward there was 
but little change. 

On the left-hand side the terraces and garden of the 




"a little picture of the Thames" 



Hotel de la Rochemartel (the sculptured entrance of 
which was in the Rue de Lille) still overtopped the 
neighboring houses and shaded the qunj with tall 
trees, whose lightly falling leaves yelloweil tlie pave- 
ment for at least a hundred yards of frontage — or 
backage, rather; for this was but tlje rear of that 
stately palace. 

" I wonder if 1' Zouzou has come into his dukedom 
yet ?" said Taffy. 

And Taffy the realist, Taffy the modern of moderns, 
also said many beautiful things about old historical 
French dukedoms ; which, in spite of their plentiful- 
ness, were so much more ])icturesque than English 
ones, and constituted a far more poetical and romantic 
link with the past; partly on account of their beauti- 
ful, high-sounding names ! 

" Amaury de Brissac de Eoncesvaulx de la Eoche- 
martel - Boissegur was a generous mouthful! Why, 
the very sound of it is redolent of the twelfth cen- 
tury! Not evea Howard of Norfolk can beat that !" 



297 

For Taffy was getting sick of "this ghastly thin- 
faced time of ours," as he sadly called it (quoting from 
a strange and very beautiful poem called " Faustine," 
which had just appeared in the Sjjectator — and which 
our three enthusiasts already knew by heart), and be- 
ginning to love all things that were old and regal and 
rotten and forgotten and of bad repute, and to long 
to paint them just as they really were. 

"Ah! they managed these things better in France, 
especially in the twelfth century, and ev^en the thir- 
teenth !" said the Laird, " Still, Howard of Norfolk 
isn't bad at a pinch — fote de myoo P^ he continued, 
winking at Little Billee. And they promised them- 
selves that they would leave cards on Zouzou, and, 
if he wasn't a duke, invite him to dinner; and also 
Dodor, if they could manage to find him. 

Then along the quay and up the Rue de Seine, and 
by well -remembered little mystic ways to the old 
studio in the Place St. Anatole des Arts. 

Here they found many changes : A row of new 
houses on the north side, by Baron Haussmann — the 
well-named ; a boulevard was being constructed right 
through the place ; but the old house had been re- 
spected, and, looking up, they saw the big north 
window of their good old abode blindless and blank 
and black but for a white placard in the middle of it 
with the words : "A louer. Un atelier, et une chambre 
a coucher." 

They entered the court-yard through the little door 
in the porte cochere, and beheld Madame Vinard 
standing on the step of her loge, her arms akimbo, 
giving orders to her husband — who was sawing logs 



298 

for firewood, as usual at that time of the year — and 
telling him. he was the most helpless log of the 
lot. 

She gave them one look, threw up her arms, and 
rushed at them, saying, " Ah, mon Dieu ! les trois 
Angliches !" 

And they could not have complained of any lack of 
warmth in her greeting, or in Monsieur Vinard's. 

" Ah ! mais quel bonheur de vous revoir ! Et comme 
vous avez bonne mine, tons ! Et Monsieur Litrebili, 
done ! il a grandi !" etc., etc. " Mais v^ous allez boire 
la goutte avant tout — vite, Vinard ! Le ratafia de 
cassis que Monsieur Durien nous a envoye la semaine 
derniere !" 

And they were taken into the loge and made free 
of it — welcomed like prodigal sons ; a fresh bottle of 
black-currant brandy was tapped, and did duty for the 
fatted calf. It was an ovation, and made quite a stir 
in the quartier. 

Le Retour des trois Angliches — cinq ans ajtres! 

She told them all the news : about Bouchardy ; 
Papelard ; Jules Guinot, who was now in tlie Minis- 
tere de la Guerre ; Barizel, who had given up the arts 
and gone into his father's business (umbrellas); Durien, 
who had married six months ago, and had a superb 
atelier in the Rue Taitbout, and was coining money ; 
about her own family — Aglae, who was going to be 
married to the son of the charbonnier at the corner 
of the Rue de la Canicule — " un bon mariage ; bien 
solide !" Niniche, who was studying the piano at 
the Conservatoire, and had won the silver medal ; Isi- 
dore, who, alas! had gone to the bad — "perdu par les 



f emraes ! un si joli gar9on, vous concevez ! 9a ne lui 
a pas porte bonheur, par exemple !" And yet she was 
proud ! and said his father would never have had the 
pluck ! 

" A dix-huit ans, pensez done ! 

" And that good Monsieur Carrel ; he is dead, you 
know ! Ah, messieurs savaient ya ? Yes, he died at 
Dieppe, his natal town, during the winter, from the 
consequences of an indigestion — que voulez-vous ! He 
always had the stomach so feeble ! . . . Ah ! the beau- 
tiful interment, messieurs ! Five thousand people, in 
spite of the rain ! Car il pleuvait averse ! And M. 
le Maire and his adjunct walking behind the hearse, 
and the gendarmerie and tlie douaniers, and a batail- 
lon of the douzieme chasseurs-a pied, with their music, 
and all the sapper -pumpers, en grande tenue with 
their beautiful brass helmets ! All the town was 
there, following : so there was nobody left to see the 
procession go by ! q'c'etait beau ! Mon Dieu, q'c'etait 
beau! c'que j'ai pleure, d'voir 9a! n'est-ce-pas, Vi- 
nard ?" 

" Dame, oui, ma biche ! j'crois ben ! It might have 
been Monsieur le Maire himself that one was interring 
in person !" 

" Ah, 9a ! voyons, Vinard ; thou'rt not going to com- 
pare the Maire of Dieppe to a painter like Monsieur 
Carrel?" 

" Certainly not, ma biche ! But still, M. Carrel was 
a great man all the same, in his way. Besides, I 
wasn't tliere — nor thou either, as to that !" 

"Mon Dieu! comme il est idiot, ce Vinard — of a 
stupidity to cut with a knife ! Why, thou might'st 



300 

almost be a Mayor thyself, sacred imbecile that thou 
art !" 

And an animated discussion arose between husband 
and wife as to the respective merits of a country 
mayor on one side and a famous painter and member 
of the Institute on the other, during which Us trois 
Angllches were left out in the cold. When Madame 
Vinard had sufficiently routed her husband, which 
did not take very long, she turned to them again, and 
told them that she had started a magasin de hric- 
d-hrac^ " vous verres 9a !" 

Yes, the studio had been to let for three months. 
"Would they like to see it ? Here were the keys. They 
would, of course, prefer to see it by themselves, alone; 
" je comprends 9a ! et vous verrez ce que vous verrez!" 
Then they must come and drink once more again the 
drop, and inspect her onagasin de hric-d-hrac. 

So they went up, all three, and let themselves into 
the old place where they had been so happy — and one 
of them for a while so miserable ! 

It was changed indeed. 

Bare of all furniture, for one thing ; shabby and un- 
swept, with a pathetic air of dilapidation, spoliation, 
desecration, and a musty, shut-up smell ; the window 
so dirty you could hardly see the new houses oppo- 
site ; the floor a disgrace ! 

All over the walls Avere caricatures in charcoal and 
white chalk, Avith more or less incomprehensible le- 
gends; very vulgar and trivial and coarse, some of 
them, and pointless for trois Angliclies. 

But among these (touching to relate) they found, 
under a square of plate-glass that had been fixed on 




* [A y w u w w y •? 



302 

the wall by means of an oak frame, Little Billee's old 
black-and-white-and-red chalk sketch of Trilby's left 
foot, as fresh as if it had been done only yesterday ! 
Over it was written: " Souvenir de la Grande Trilby, 
par W. B, (Litrebili)." And beneath, carefully en- 
grossed on imperishable parchment, and pasted on the 
glass, the following stanzas : 

" Pauvre Trilby — la belle et bonne et chere ! 
Je suis son pied. Devine qui voudra 
Quel tendre ami, la cberissant naguere, 
Encadra d'elle (et d'un amour sincere) 

Ce souvenir charmant qu'ua caprice inspira — 
Qu'un souffle emportera ! 

"J'etais jumeau : qu'est devenu mon f rfire ? 

Helas ! Helas ! L'Amour nous egara. 

L'feternite nous unira, j'espere ; 

Et nous ferons comme autrefois la paire 
Au fond d'un lit bien chaste oil nul ne troublera 
Trilby — qui dormira. 

"0 tendre ami, sans nous qu'allez-vous faire ? 
La porte est close ou Trilby dcmeura. 
Le Paradis est loin . . . et sur la terre 
(Qui nous fut douce et lui sera legere) 

Pour trouver nos pareils, si bien qu'on clierchera — 
Beau chercher Ton aura !" 

Taffy drew a long breath into his manly bosom, and 
kept it there as he read this characteristic French dog- 
gerel (for so he chose to call this touching little sym- 
phony in ere and /•«). His huge frame thrilled with 
tenderness and pity and fond remembrance, and he 
said to himself (letting out his breath) : " Dear, dear 
Trilby ! Ah ! if you had only cared for me, /wouldn't 




•'PAUTRE trilby' 



304 

have let you give me up— not for ^ny one on earth. 
You were the mate for me /" 

And that, as the reader has guessed long ago, was 
big Taffy's " history," 

The Laird was also deeply touched, and could not 
speak. Had lie been in love with Trilby, too ? Had 
he ever been in love with any one ? 

He couldn't say. But he thought of Trilby's sweet- 
ness and unselfishness, her gayety, her innocent kiss- 
ings and caressings, her drollery and frolicsome grace, 
her way of filling whatever place she was in with her 
presence, the charming sight and the genial sound of 
her; and felt that no girl, no woman, no lady he had 
ever seen yet was a match for this poor waif and 
stray, this long-legged, cancan-dancing, quartier-latin 
grisette, blanchisseuse de fin, "and Heaven knows 
what besides !'' 

" Hang it all !" he mentally ejaculated, " I wish to 
goodness I'd married her myself f^ 

Little Billee said nothing either. He felt unhappier 
than he had ever once felt for five long years — to 
think that he could gaze on such a memento as this, a 
thing so strongly personal to himself, with dry eyes 
and a quiet pulse ! and he unemotionally, dispassion- 
ately, wished himself dead and buried for at least the 
thousand and first time ! 

All three possessed casts of Trilby's hands and feet 
and photographs of herself. But nothing so charm- 
ingly suggestive of Trilby as this little masterpiece of 
a true artist, this happy fluke of a happy moment. It 
was Trilbiness itself, as the Laird thought, and should 
not be suffered to perish. 



305 

They took the keys back to Madame Vinard in si- 
lence. 

She said : " Yous avez vu — n'est-ce pas, messieurs ? — 
le pied de Trilby ! c'est bien gentil ! C'est Monsieur 
Durien qui a fait mettre le verre, quand vous etes par- 
tis; et Monsieur Guinot qui a compose Vepitaj^he. 
Pauvre Trilby ! qu'est-ce qu'elle est devenue ! comma 
elle etait bonne fille, hein ? et si belle ! et comme elle 
etait vive elle etait vive elle etait vive ! Et comme 
elle vous aimait tons bien — et surtout Monsieur Litre- 
bili — n'est-ce pas?" 

Then she insisted on giving them each another liq- 
ueur-glass of Durien's ratafia de cassis, and took them 
to see her collection of bric-a-brac across the yard, a 
gorgeous show, and explained everything about it — 
how she had begun in quite a small way, but was mak- 
inoj it a bio: business. 

"Yoyez cette pendule! It is of the time of Louis 
Onze, who gave it with his own hands to Madame de 
Pompadour (!). I bought it at a sale in — " 

" Combiang^' said the Laird. 

"C'est cent-cinquante francs, monsieur — c'est bien 
bon marche — une veritable occasion, et — " 

" Je prong !" said the Laird, meaning " I take it !" 

Then she showed them a beautiful brocade gown 
" which she had picked up at a bargain at — •" 

" Combiang?" said the Laird. 

" Ah, 9a, c'est trois cents francs, monsieur. Mais — " 

" Je prong !" said the Laird. 

" Et voici les souliers qui vont avec, et que — " 

"Jepr— " 

But here Taffy took the Laird by the arm and 
20 



806 

dragged him by force out of this too seductive siren's 
cave. 

The Laird told her where to send his purchases; 
and with many expressions of love and good-will on 
both sides, they tore themselves away from Monsieur 
et Madame Vinard. 

The Laird, however, rushed back for a minute, and 
hurriedly whispered to Madame Vinard : " Oh — er — 
le piay de Trilby — sur le mure, vous savvy — avec le 
verre et toot le reste — coopy le mure — comprenny ? . . , 
Combiang ?" 

"Ah, monsieur!" said Madame Vinard — "c'est un 
pen difficile, vous savez — couper un mur comme ya! 
On parlera au proprietaire si vous voulez, et 9a pour- 
rait peut-etre s'arrangei", si c'est en bois ! seulement il 
fau— " 

" Je prong !" said the Laird, and waved his hand in 
farewell. 

They went up the Rue Vieille des Mauvais Ladres, 
and found that about twenty yards of a high wall 
had been pulled down — just at the bend where the 
Laird had seen the last of Trilby, as she turned round 
and kissed her hand to him — and they beheld, within, 
a quaint and ancient long -neglected garden; a gray 
old garden, with tall, warty, black -boled trees, and 
damp, green, mossy paths that lost themselves under 
the brown and yellow leaves and mould and muck 
which had drifted into heaps here and there, the ac- 
cumulation of years — a queer old faded pleasance, with 
wasted bowers and dilapidated carved stone benches 
and weather-beaten discolored marble statues — nose- 
less, armless, earless fauns and hamadryads ! And at 



307 



the end of it, in a tumble-down state of utter ruin, a 
still inhabited little house, with shabby blinds and 
window -curtains, and broken window-panes mended 
with brown paper — a Pavilon de Flore, that must 
have been quite beautiful a hundred 3'ears ago — the 
once mysterious love-resort of long-buried abbes with 
light hearts, and well-forgotten lords and ladies gay — 
red-heeled, patched, powdered, frivolous, and shame- 
less, but oh ! how charming to the imagination of the 




" • JE PKONG 1' " 



308 

nineteenth century ! And right through the ragged 
lawn (where lay, upset in tlie long dewy grass, a 
broken doll's perambulator by a tattered Punchinello) 
went a desecrating track made by cart-wheels and 
horses' hoofs; and this, no doubt, was to be a new 
street — perhaps, as Taffy suggested, " La Rue Neuve 
des Mauvais Ladres !" (The New Street of the Bad 
Lepers !). 

"Ah, Taffy!" sententiously opined the Laird, with 
his usual wink at Little Billee, " I've no doubt the 
old lepers were the best, bad as they were !" 

" I'm quite sure of it !" said Taffy, with sad and 
sober conviction and a long-drawn sigh. " I only wish 
I had a chance of painting one — just as he really 
was !" 

How often they had speculated on what lay hidden 
behind that Jofty old brick wall ! and now this melan- 
choly little peep into the once festive past, the touch- 
ing sight of this odd old poverty-stricken abode of 
Heaven knows what present grief and desolation, 
which a few strokes of the pickaxe had laid bare, 
seemed to chime in .with their own gray mood that 
had been so bright and sunny an hour ago ; and they 
went on their way quite dejectedly, for a stroll through 
the Luxembourg Gallery and Gardens. 

The same people seemed to be still copying the 
same pictures in the long, quiet, genial room, so pleas- 
antly smeUing of oil-paint — Rosa Bonheur's " Labou- 
rage Nivernais " — Hebert's " Malaria " — Couture's 
" Decadent Romans.'' 

And in the formal dusty gardens were the same pi- 
oupious and zouzous still walking with the same nou- 



309 

nous, or sitting by tiieir sides on benches by formal 
ponds with gold and silver fish in them — and just the 
same old couples petting the same toutous and lou- 
lous !* 

Then thsy thought they would go and lunch at le 
pere Trin's — the Restaurant de la Couronne, in the 
Rue du Luxembourg — for the sake of auld lang syne ! 
But when they got there the well-remembered fumes of 
that humble refectory, which had once seemed not un- 
a})petizing, turned their stomachs. So they contented 
themselves with warmly greeting le pere Trin, wdio 
was quite overjoj^ed to see them again, and anxious to 
turn the whole establishment topsy-turvy that he 
might entertain such guests as they deserved. 

Then the Laird suggested an omelet at the Cafe de 
I'Otleon. But Taffy said, in his masterful way, " Damn 
the Cafe de l\:>deon !" 

And hailing a little open fly, they drove to Ledo- 
yen's, or some such place, in the Champs Elysees, 
where they feasted as became three prosperous Britons 
out for a holiday in Paris — three irresponsible mus- 
keteers, lords of themselves and Lutetia, heati possi- 
dentes ! — and afterwards had themselves driven in an 
open carriage and pair through the Bois de Boulogne 
to the fete de St. Cloud (or what still remained of it, 
for it lasts six weeks), the scene of so many of Dodor's 
and Zouzou's exploits in past years, and found it more 

* Glossary.— 'Piowp'xon {alias pousse - caillou, alias tourlourou) — 
a private soldier of the line. Zouzou — a Zouave. Nounou — a wet- 
nurse with a pretty ribboned cap and long streamers. Toutou — a 
nondeseript French lapdog, of no breed known to Englishmen (a 
regular little beast !) Loulou— a Pomeranian dog — not much better. 



310 

amusing than the Luxembourg Gardens ; the lively 
and irrepressible spirit of Dodor seemed to pervade it 
still. 

But it doesn't want the presence of a Dodor to make 
the blue-bloused sons of the Gallic people (and its 
neatly shod, white-capped daughters) delightful to 
watch as they take their pleasure. And the Laird 
(thinking perhaps of Ilampstead Heath on an Easter 
Monday) must not be blamed for once more quoting 
his favorite phrase — the pretty little phrase with 
which the most humorous and least exemplary of 
British parsons began his famous journey to France, 

When they came back to the hotel to dress and 
dine, the Laird found he wanted a pair of white gloves 
for the concert — "Oon pair de gong blong," as he 
called it — and they w^alked along the bouleva.rds till 
they came to a haberdasher's shop of very good and 
prosperous appearance, and, going in, were received 
graciously by the " patron," a portly little bourgeois, 
who waved them to a tall and aristocratic and very 
well dressed young commis behind the counter, saying, 
" Une paire de gants blancs pour monsieur." 

And what was the surprise of our three friends in 
recognizino: Dodor ! 

The gay .Dodor, Dodor I'irresistible, quite unem- 
barrassed by his position, was exuberant in his delight 
at seeing them again, and introduced them to the pa- 
tron and his wife and daughter, Monsieur, Madame, 
and Mademoiselle Passefil. And it soon became pret- 
ty evident that, in spite of his humble employment in 
that house, he w^as a great favorite in that famil}^ and 
especially with mademoiselle. 



inis^r^ 



5 i 




312 

Indeed, Monsieur Passefil invited our three heroes 
to stay and dine then and there ; but they compro- 
mised matters by asking Dodor to come and dine with 
them at the hotel, and he accepted with alacrity. 

Thanks to Dodor, the dinner was a very lively one, 
and they soon forgot the regretful impressions of the 
day. 

They learned that he hadn't got a penny in the world, 
and had left the army, and had for two years kept the 
books at le pere Passefil's and served his customers, 
and won his good opinion and his wife's, and espe- 
cially his daughter's ; and that soon he was to be not 
only his employer's partner, but his son-in-law ; and 
that, in spite of his irapecuniosity, he had managed to 
impress them with the fact that in marrying a Rigolot 
de Lafarce she was making a very splendid match in- 
deed ! 

His brother-in-law, the Honorable Jack Reeve, had 
long cut him for a bad lot. But his sister, after a 
while, had made up her mind that to marry Mile. 
Passefil wasn't the worst he could do ; at all events, 
it would keep him out of England, and that was a 
comfort! And passing through Paris, she had actu- 
ally called on the Passefil family, and they had fallen 
prostrate before such splendor; and no wonder, for 
Mrs. Jack Reeve was one of the most beautiful, ele- 
gant, and fashionable women in London, the smartest 
of the smart. 

" And how about 1' Zouzou ?" asked Little Billee. 

" Ah, old Gontran ! I don't see much of him. We 
no longer quite move in the same circles, you know ; 
not that he's proud, or me either ! but he's a sub-lieu- 



313 

tenant in the Guides — an officer ! Besides, his broth- 
er's dead, and he's the Due de la Rochemartel, and a 
special pet of the Empress ; he makes her laugh more 
than anybody! He's looking out for the biggest 
heiress he can find, and he's pretty safe to catch her, 
with such a name as that! In fact, they say he's 
caught her already — Miss Lavinia Hunks, of Chicago. 
Twenty million dollars! — at least, so the Figaro says!" 
Then he gave them news of other old friends ; and 
they did not part till it was time for them to go to 
the Cirque des Bashibazoucks, and after they had ar- 
ranged to dine with his future family on the following 
day. 

In the Rue St. Honore was a long double file of 
cabs and carriages slowly moving along to the portals 
of that huge hall, Le Cirque des Bashibazoucks. Is it 
there still, I wonder? I don't mind betting not ! Just 
at this period of the Second Empire there was a mania 
for demolition and remolition (if there is such a word), 
and I have no doubt my Parisian readers would search 
the Rue St. Honore for the Salle des Bashibazoucks in 
vain! 

Our friends were shown to their stalls, and looked 
round in surprise. This was before the days of the 
Albert Hall, and they had never been in such a big 
place of the kind before, or one so regal in aspect, so 
gorgeously imperial with white and gold and crimson 
velvet, so dazzling with light, so crammed with people 
from floor to roof, and cramming itself still. 

A platform carpeted with crimson cloth had been 
erected in front of the gates where the horses had 



314 

once used to come in, and their fair riders, and the 
two jolly English clowns ; and the beautiful nobleman 
with the long frock-coat and brass buttons, and soft 
high boots, and four-in-hand whip — " la chambri^re." 

In front of this was a lower stand for the orchestra. 
The circus itself was filled with stalls — stalles d'or- 
chestre. A pair of crimson curtains hid the entrance 
to the platform at the back, and by each of these 
stood a small page, ready to draw it aside and admit 
the diva. 

The entrance to the orchestra was by a small door 
under the platform, and some thirty or forty chairs 
and music-stands, grouped around the conductor's es- 
trade, were waiting for the band. 

Little Billee looked round, and recognized many 
countrymen and countrywomen of his own — many 
great musical celebrities especially, whom he had often 
met in London. Tiers upon tiers of people rose up all 
round in a widening circle, and lost themselves in a 
dazy mist of light at the top — it was like a picture by 
Martin ! In the imperial box were the English ambas- 
sador and his family, with an august British personage 
sitting in the middle, in front, his broad blue ribbon 
across his breast and his opera-glass to his royal eyes. 

Little Billee had never felt so excited, so exhilarated 
by such a show before, nor so full of eager anticipa- 
tion. He looked at his programme, and saw that the 
Hungarian "band (the first that had yet appeared in 
western Europe, I believe) would play an overture of 
gypsy dances. Then Madame Svengali would sing 
" un air connu, sans accompagnement," and afterwards 
other airs, including the " Nussbaum " of Schumann 



315 



(for the first time in Paris, it seemed). Then a rest of 
ten minutes ; then more csardas ; then the diva would 
sing " Malbrouck s'en va-t'en guerre," of all things in 
the world ! and finish up with " un impromptu de 
Chopin, sans paroles." 

Truly a somewhat incon- 
gruous bill of fare ! 

Close on the stroke of nine 
the musicians came in and 
took their seats. They were 
dressed in the foreign hussar 
uniform that has now become 
so familiar. The first violin 
had scarcely sat down before 
our friends recognized in him 
their old friend Gecko. 

Just as the clock struck, 
Svengali, in irreproachable 
evening dress, tall and stout gecko 

and quite splendid in appear- 
ance, notwithstanding his long black mane (which 
had been curled), took his place at his desk. Our 
friends would have known him at a glance, in spite 
of the wonderful alteration time and prosperity had 
wrought in his outward man. 

He bowed right and left to the thunderous applause 
that greeted him, gave his three little baton-taps, and 
the lovely music began at once. We have grown ac- 
customed to strains of this kind during the last twenty 
years ; but they were new then, and their strange se- 
duction was a surprise as well as an enchantment. 

Besides, no such band as Svengali's had ever been 




316 

heard ; and in listening to this overture the immense 
crowd ahnost forgot that it Avas a mere preparation 
for a great musical event, and tried to encore it. But 
Svengali merely turned round and bowed — there were 
to be no encores that night. 

Then a moment of silence and breathless suspense — 
curiosity on tiptoe ! 

Then the two little page-boys each drew a silken 
rope, and the curtains parted and looped themselves 
up on each side symmetrically ; and a tall female figure 
appeared, clad in what seemed like a classical dress of 
cloth of gold, embroidered with garnets and beetles' 
wings ; her snowy arms and shoulders bare, a gold 
coronet of stars on her head, her thick light brown 
hair tied behind and flowing all down her back to 
nearly her knees, like those ladies in hair -dressers' 
shops who sit with their backs to the plate-glass win- 
dows to advertise the merits of some particular hair- 
wash. 

She walked slowly down to the front, her hands 
hanging at her sides in quite a simple fashion, and 
made a slight inclination of her head and body tow- 
ards the imperial box, and then to right and left. 
Her lips and cheeks were rouged ; her dark level eye- 
brows nearly met at the bridge of her short high nose. 
Through her parted lips you could see her large glis- 
tening white teeth ; her gray eyes looked straight at 
Svengali. 

Her face was thin, and had a rather haggard ex- 
pression, in spite of its artificial freshness ; but its con- 
tour was divine, and its character so tender, so humble, 
so touchingly simple and sweet, that one melted at the 



317 

sight of her. No such magnificent or seductive appa- 
rition has ever been seen before or since on any stage 
or platform — not even Miss Ellen Terry as the priest- 
ess of Artemis in the late Laureate's play, " The 
Cup." 

The house rose at her as she came down to the front ; 
and she bowed again to right and left, and put her hand 
to her heart quite simply and with a most winning 
natural gesture, an adorable gaucherie — like a graceful 
and unconscious school -girl, quite innocent of stage 
deportment. 

It was Trilby ! 

Trilby the tone-deaf, who couldn't sing one single 
note in tune! Trilby, who couldn't tell a C from 
an F ! ! 

What was going to happen ! 

Our three friends were almost turned to stone in 
the immensity of their surprise. 

Yet the big Taffy was trembling all over ; the Laird's 
jaw had all but fallen on to his chest ; Little Billee was 
staring, staring his ej'^es almost out of his head. There 
was something, to them, so strange and uncanny about 
it all ; so oppressive, so anxious, so momentous ! 

The applause had at last subsided. Trilby stood 
with her hands behind her, one foot (the left one) on a 
little stool that had been left there on purpose, her lips 
parted, her eyes on Svengali's, ready to begin. 

He gave his three beats, and the band struck a chord. 
Then, at another beat from him, but in her direction, 
she began, without the slightest appearance of effort, 
without any accompaniment whatever, he still beating 



318 

time — conducting her, in fact, just as if she had been 
an orchestra herself : 

"Au clair de la lune, 

Moa ami Pierrot ! 
Pr8te-moi ta plume 

Pour ecrire un mot. 
Ma chandelle est morte . . . 

Je n'ai plus de feu ! 
Ouvre-moi ta porta 

Pour I'amour de Dieu 1" 

This was the absurd old nursery rhyme with which 
la Svengali chose to make her debut before the most 
critical audience in the world ! She sang it three times 
over — the same verse. There is but one. 

The first time she sang it without any expression 
whatever — not the slightest. Just the words and the 
tune ; in the middle of her voice, and not loud at all ; 
just as a child sings who is thinking of something else; 
or just as a young French mother sings who is darning 
socks by a cradle, and rocking her baby to sleep with 
her foot. 

But her voice was so immense in its softness, rich- 
ness, freshness, that it seemed to be pouring itself out 
from all round ; its intonation absolutely, mathemati- 
cally pure ; one felt it to be not only faultless, but 
infaUible; and the seduction, the novelty of it, the 
strangely sympathetic quality ! How can one describe 
the quality of a peach or a nectarine to those who 
have only known apples ? 

Until la Svengali appeared, the world had only 
known apples — Catalanis, Jenny Linds, Grisis, Albonis, 
Pattis! The best apples that can. be, for sure — but 
still only apples ! 




AU CLAIK DE LA LUNE' 



820 

If she had spread a pair of large white wings and 
gracefully fluttered up to the roof and perched upon 
the chandelier, she could not have produced a greater 
sensation. The like of that voice has never been heard, 
nor ever will be again, A woman archangel might 
sing like that, or some enchanted princess out of a 
fairy-tale. 

Little Billee had already dropped his face into his 
hands and hid his eyes in his pocket-handkerchief ; a 
big tear had fallen on to Taffy's left whisker ; the Laird 
was trying hard to keep his tears back. 

She sang the verse a second time, with but little 
added expression and no louder ; but with a sort of 
breathy widening of her voice that made it like a broad 
heavenly smile of universal motherhood turned into 
sound. One felt all the genial gayety and grace and 
impishness of Pierrot and Columbine idealized into 
frolicsome beauty and holy innocence, as though they 
were performing for the saints in Paradise — a baby 
Columbine, with a cherub for clown ! The dream of 
it all came over you for a second or two — a revelation 
of some impossible golden age — priceless — never to be 
foro^otten ! How on earth did she do it ? 

Little Billee had lost all control over himself, and 
was shaking with his suppressed sobs — Little Billee, 
who hadn't shed a single tear for five long years! 
Half the people in the house were in tears, but tears of 
sheer delight, of delicate inner laughter. 

Then she came back to earth, and saddened and 
veiled and darkened her voice as she sang the verse for 
the third time ; and it was a great and sombre tragedy, 
too deep for any more tears ; and somehow or other 



331 

poor Columbine, forlorn and betrayed and dying, out 
in the cold at midnight — sinking down to hell, per- 
haps — was making her last frantic appeal ! It was no 
longer Pierrot and Columbine — it was Marguerite — 
it was Faust ! It was the most terrible and pathetic 
of all possible human tragedies, but expressed with no 
dramatic or histrionic exaggeration of any sort; by 
mere tone, slight, subtle changes in the quality of the 
sound — too quick and elusive to be taken count of, but 
to be felt with, oh, what poignant sympathy ! 

When the song was over the applause did not come 
immediately, and she waited with her kind wide smile, 
as if she were well accustomed to wait like this ; and 
then the storm began, and grew and spread and rattled 
and echoed — voice, hands, feet, sticks, umbrellas ! — 
and down came the bouquets, which the little page- 
boys picked up ; and Trilb}'" bowed to front and right 
and left in her simple dehonnaire fashion. It was her 
usual triumph. It had never failed, whatever the au- 
dience, whatever the country, whatever the song. 

Little Billee didn't applaud. He sat with his head 
in his hands, his shoulders still heaving. He believed 
himself to be fast asleep and in a dream, and was try- 
ing his utmost not to wake ; for a great happiness was 
his. It was one of those nights to be marked with a 
white stone! 

As the first bars of the song came pouring out of 
her parted lips (whose shape he so well remembered), 
and her dovelike eyes looked straight over Svengali's 
head, straight in his own direction — nay, at him— 
something melted in his brain, and all his long-lost 
power of loving came back with a rush. 

21 



333 



It was like the sudden curing of a deafness that has 
been lasting for years. The doctor blows through 
your nose into your Eustachian tube with a little 
India-rubber machine ; some obstacle gives way, there 

is a snap in your head, 
and straightway you 
liear better than you had 
ever heard in all your 
life, almost too well ; 
and all your life is once 
more changed for you ! 
At length he sat up 
again, in the middle of 
la Sveno-ali's sino-ino- oi 
the " Nussbaum," and 
saw her; and saw the 
Laird sitting by him, 
and Taffy, their e\^es 
riveted on Trilby, and 
knew for certain that it 
was no dream this time, 
and his joy was almost 
a pain! 

She sang the " Nuss- 
baum " (to its heavenly 
accompaniment) as sim- 
ply as she had sung the 
previous song. Every 
separate note was a 
highly finished gem of 
"ocTRE-Moi TA poRTK sounQ, Imkecl to tne 

POUR l'amour de DiEtj !" ncxt by a magic bond. 




333 

Tou did not require to be a lover of music to fall be- 
neath the spell of such a voice as that ; the mere me- 
lodic phrase had all but ceased to matter. Her phras- 
ing, consummate as it was, was as simple as a child's. 

It was as if she said : " See ! what does the composer 
count for ? Here is about as beautiful a song as was 
ever written, with beautiful words to match, and the 
words have been made French for you by one of your 
smartest poets ! But what do the words signify, any 
more than the tune, or even the language ? The ' Nuss- 
baum' is neither better nor worse than 'Mon ami 
Pierrot ' when / am the singer ; for I am Svengali ; 
and you shall hear nothing, see nothing, think of noth- 
ing but Svengali, Svengali, Svengali /" 

It was the apotheosis of voice and virtuosity ! It 
was "il bel canto" come back to earth after a hun- 
dred years — the bel canto of Vivarelli, let us say, 
who sang the same song every night to the same King 
of Spain for a quarter of a century, and was rewarded 
with a dukedom, and wealth • beyond the dreams of 
avarice. 

And, indeed, here was this immense audience, made 
up of the most cynically critical people in the world, 
and the most anti-German, assisting with rapt ears and 
streaming eyes at the imagined spectacle of a simple 
German damsel, a Miidchen, a Friiulein, just "ver- 
lobte " — a future Hausfrau — sitting under a walnut- 
tree in some suburban garden — a Berlin ! — and around 
her her family and their friends, probably drinking 
beer and smoking long porcelain pipes, and talking 
politics or business, and cracking innocent elaborate 
old German jokes ; with bated breath, lest they should 



334 

disturb her maiden dream of love ! And all as though 
it were a scene in Elysium, and the Friiulein a nymph 
of many - f ountained Ida, and her people Olympian 
gods and goddesses. 

And such, indeed, they were when Trilby sang of 
them! 

After this, when the long, frantic applause had sub- 
sided, she made a gracious bow to the royal British 
opera-glass (which bad never left her face), and sang 
" Ben Bolt " in English ! 

And then Little Billee remembered there was such 
a person as Svengali in the world, and recalled his 
little flexible flageolet ! 

" That is howl teach Gecko; that is how I teach la 
bedite Honorine ; that is how I teach il bel canto. . . . 
It was lost, il bel canto — and I found it in a dream — 
I, Svengali !" 

And his old cosmic vision of the beauty and sadness 
of things, the very heart of them, and their pathetic 
evanescence, came back with a tenfold clearness — that 
heavenly glimpse beyond the veil! And with it a 
crushing sense of his own infinitesimal significance by 
the side of this glorious pair of artists, one of whom 
had been his friend and the other his love — a love who 
had offered to be his humble mistress and slave, not 
feeling herself good enough to be his wife ! 

It made him sick and faint to remember, and filled 
him with hot shame, and then and there his love for 
Trilby became as that of a dog for its master ! 

She sang once more — " Chanson de Printemps," by 
Gounod (who was present, and seemed very hysteri- 
cal), and the first part of the concert was over, and 



325 



people had time to draw breath and talk over this new 
wonder, this revelation of what the human voice could 
achieve; and an immense hum filled the hall — aston- 
ishment, enthusiasm, ec- 



static delight ! 



But our three friends 
found little to say — for 
what they felt there were 
as yet no words ! 




"MALBROUCK S'eK VA-t'eN GUKRRE " 



Taffy and the 
Laird looked at 
Little B i 1 1 e e, 
who seemed to 
be looking in- 
ward at some 
transcendent dream of his own; with red eyes, and 
his face all pale and drawn, and his nose very pink, 
and rather thicker than usual; and the dream ap- 
peared to be out of the common blissful, though his 



326 

eyes were swimming still, for his smile was almost id- 
iotic in its rapture ! 

The second part of the concert was still shorter than 
the first, and created, if possible, a wilder enthusiasm. 

Trilby only sang twice. 

Her first song was " MalbroucR s'en va-t'en guerre." 

She began it quite lightly and merrily, like a jolly 
march ; in the middle of her voice, which had not as 
yet revealed any exceptional compass or range. Peo- 
ple laughed quite frankly at the first verse: 

"Malbrouck s'en va-t'en guerre — 
Mironton, mironton, mirontaine ! 
Malbrouck s'en va-t'en guerre. . . . 
Ne sais quand reviendra I 
Ne sais quand reviendra ! 
Ne siiis quand reviendra 1" 

The mironton, mirontaine was the very essence of 
high martial resolve and heroic self-confidence ; one 
would have led a forlorn hope after hearing it once ! 

"II reviendra-z-3, Paques — 

Mironton, mironton, mirontaine/ 
II reviendraz-a Paques. . . . 
Ou ... a la Trinite !" 

People still laughed, though the mironton, mirontaine 
betrayed an uncomfortable sense of the dawning of 
doubts and fears — vague forebodings! 

"La Trinite se passe — 

Mironton, mironton, mirontaine! 
La Trinite se passe. . . . 
Malbrouck ne revient pas I" 



327 

And here, especially in the mironton^ mirontaine^ a 
note of anxiety revealed itself — so poignant, so acutely 
natural and human, that it became a personal anxiety 
of one's own, causing the heart to beat, and one's 
breath was short. 

"Madame a sa tour monte — 

Mironton, mironton, mirontaine ! 
Madame a sa tour moute, 

Si haul qu'elle pent monter I" 

Oh ! How one's heart went with her ! Anne ! Sis- 
ter Anne ! Do you see anything? 

"Elle voit do loin sou page — 

Mironton, mironton, mirontaine ! 
Elle voit de loin son page, 
Tout de noir liabille 1" 

One is almost sick with the sense of impending 
calamity — it is all but unbearable ! 

"Mon page — mon beau page! — 
Mironton, mironton, mirontaine! 
Mon page — mon beau page! 
Quelle nouvellea apportez?"' 

And here Little Billee begins to weep again, and 
so does everybody else ! The mironton^ 'mirontaine 
is an agonized wail of suspense — poor bereaved 
duchess ! — poor Sarah Jennings ! Did it all announce 
itself to you just like that ? 

All this while the accompaniment had been quite 
simple — just a few obvious ordinary chords. 

But now, quite suddenly, without a single modula- 
tion or note of warning, down goes the tune a full 



338 

major third, from E to C — into the graver depths of 
Trilby's great contralto — so solemn and ominous that 
there is no more weeping, but the flesh creeps; the 
accompaniment slows and elaborates itself ; the march 
becomes a funeral march, with muted strings, and 
quite slowly : 

" Aux nouvelles que j'appoite — 
Miraiiton, mironton, mirontaiiic ! 
Aux nouvelles que j'apporte, 
Vos beaux yeux vout pleurer !" 

Richer and richer grows the accompaniment. The 
mironton^ mirontalne becomes a dirge — 

"Quittez vos habits roses — 

Mironton, mironton, inirontaim ! 
Quittez vos habits roses, 
Et vos satins broches!" 

Here the ding-donging of a big bell seems to mingle 
with the score ; . . . and very slowly, and so impres- 
sively that the news will ring forever in the ears and 
hearts of those who hear it from la Svengali's lips : 

"Le Sieur Malbrouck est mort — 
Mironton, mirontori, mirontaine! 
Le Sieur — Malbrouck — est — mort ! 
Est mort — et enteire!" 

And thus it ends quite abruptly ! 

And this heart-rending tragedy, this great historical 
epic in two dozen lines, at which some five or six thou- 
sand gay French people are sniffling and mopping their 
eyes like so many Niobes, is just a common old French 




" AUX NOUVELI,ES QUE J'aPPORTE, 

VOS BEAUX YEUX TONT PLEURER !" 

comic song — a mere nursery ditty, like " Little Bo- 
peep" — to the tune, 

" We won't go home till morning. 
Till daylight doth appear." 

And after a second or two of silence (oppressive and 
impressive as that which occurs at a burial when the 
handful of earth is being dropped on the coffin - lid) 
the audience bursts once more into madness; and la 
Svengali, who accepts no encores, has to bow for near- 
ly five minutes, standing amid a sea of flowers. . . . 



330 

Then comes her great and final performance. The 
orchestra swiftly plays the first four bars of the bass 
in Chopin's Impromptu (A flat) ; and suddenly, with- 
out words, as a light nymph catching the whirl of a 
double skipping-rope, la Svengali breaks in, and vocal- 
izes that astounding piece of music that so few pianists 
can even play ; but no pianist has ever played it like 
this ; no piano has ever given out such notes as these ! 

Every single phrase is a string of perfect gems, of 
purest ray serene, strung together on a loose golden 
thread ! The higher and shriller she sings, the sweeter 
it is ; higher and shriller than any woman had ever 
sung before. 

"Waves of sweet and tender laughter, the very heart 
and essence of innocent, high-spirited girlhood, alive to 
all that is simple and joyous and elementary in nature 
— the freshness of the morning, the ripple of the stream, 
the click of the mill, the lisp of wind in the trees, the 
song of the lark in the cloudless sky — the sun and the 
dew, the scent of early flowers and summer woods and 
meadows — the sight of birds and bees and butterflies 
and frolicsome young animals at play — all the sights 
and scents and sounds that are the birthright of happy 
children, happy savages in favored climes — things 
within the remembrance and the reach of most of us ! 
All this, the memory and the feel of it, are in Trilby's 
voice as she w^arbles that long, smooth, lilting, dancing 
laugh, that wondrous song without words ; and those 
who hear feel it all, and remember it with her. It is 
irresistible ; it forces itself on you ; no words, no pict- 
ures, could ever do the like ! So that the tears that are 
shed out of all these many French eyes are tears of 



332 

pure, unmixed delight in happy reminiscence! (Cho- 
pin, it is trae, may have meant something quite dif- 
ferent — a hot-house, perhaps, with orchids and arum 
lihes and tuberoses and hydrangeas — but that is 
neither here nor there.) 

Then comes the slow movement, the sudden adagio, 
with its capricious ornaments — the waking of the 
virgin heart, the stirring of the sap, the dawn of love; 
its doubts and fears and questionings ; and the mellow, 
powerful, deep chest notes are hke the pealing of great 
golden bells, with a light little pearl shower tinkling 
round — drops from the upper fringe of her grand voice 
as she shakes it. . . . 

Then back again the quick part, childhood once 
more, da capo, onlj" quicker! hurr}^ hurry ! but distinct 
as ever. Loud and shrill and sweet beyond compare — 
drowning the orchestra; of a piercing quality quite in- 
effable ; a joy there is no telling; a clear, purling, crys- 
tal stream that gurgles and foams and bubbles along 
over sunlit stones ; " a wonder, a world's delight !" 

And there is not a sign of effort, of difficulty over- 
come. All through. Trilby smiles her broad, angelic 
smile ; her lips well parted, her big white teeth glisten- 
ing as she gentl}^ jerks her head from side to side in 
time to Svengali's baton, as if to shake the willing 
notes out quicker and higher and shriller. . . . 

And in a minute or two it is all over, like the lovely 
bouquet of fireworks at the end of the show, and she 
lets what remains of it die out and away like the after- 
glow of fading Bengal fires — her voice receding into 
the distance — coming back to you like an echo from 
all round, from anywhere you please — quite soft — 



333 

hardly more than a breath ; but sioch a breath ! Then 
one last chromatically ascending rocket, pianissimo, 
up to E in alt, and then darkness and silence ! 

And after a little pause the many-headed rises as 
one, and waves its hats and sticks and handkerchiefs, 
and stamps and shouts. . . . "Vive la Svengali! Vive 
la Svengali !" 

Svengali steps on to the platform by his wife's side 
and kisses her hand ; and they both bow themselves 
backward through the curtains, which fall, to rise 
again and again and again on this astounding pair ! 

Such was la Svengali's debut in Paris. 

It had lasted little over an hour, one quarter of 
which, at least, had been spent in plaudits and cour- 
tesies ! 

The writer is no musician, alas ! (as, no doubt, his 
musical readers have found out by this) save in his 
thraldom to music of not too severe a kind, and la- 
ments the clumsiness and inadequacy of this wild 
(though somewhat ambitious) attempt to recall an im- 
pression received more than thirty years ago ; to re- 
vive the ever- blessed memory of that unforgettable 
first night at the Cirque des Bashibazoucks. 

Would that I could transcribe here Berlioz's famous 
series of twelve articles, entitled "La Svengali," which 
were republished from La Lyre Eoliemie, and are now 
out of print ! 

Or Theophile Gautier's elaborate rhapsody, "Ma- 
dame Svengali — Ange, ou Femme?" in which he 
proves that one need not have a musical ear (he hadn't) 
to be enslaved by such a voice as hers, any more than 
the eye for beauty (this he had) to fall the victim of 



334 

" her celestial form and face." It is enough, he says, 
to be simply human ! I forget in which journal this 
eloquent tribute appeared ; it is not to be found in 
his collected works. 

Or the intemperate diatribe by Herr Blagner (as I 
will christen him) on the tyranny of the prima donna 
called " Svengalisraus'' ; in which he attempts to show 
that mere virtuosity carried to such a pitch is mere 
viciosity — base acrobatismus of the vocal chords, a 
hysteric appeal to morbid Gallic "sentimentalismus"; 
and that this monstrous development of a phenomenal 
larynx, this degrading cultivation and practice of the 
abnormalismus of a mere physical peculiarity, are 
death and destruction to all true music ; since they 
place Mozart and Beethoven, and even himself, on a 
level Avith Bellini, Donizetti, Offenbach— any Italian 
tune - tinlder, any ballad - monger of the hated Paris 
pavement ! and can make the highest music of all 
(even Ms own) go down with the common French 
herd at the very first hearing, just as if it were some 
idiotic refrain of the cafe chantant ! 

So much for Blagnerismus v. Svengalismus. 

But I fear there is no space within the limits of 
this humble tale for these masterpieces of technical 
musical criticism. 

Besides, there are other reasons. 

Our three heroes walked back to the boulevards, the 
only silent ones amid the throng that poured, through 
the Kue St. Honore, as the Cirque des Bashibazoucks 
emptied itself of its over-excited audience. 

They went arm in arm, as usual ; but this time Lit- 



335 

tie Billee was in the middle. He wished to feel on 
each side of him the warm and genial contact of his 
two beloved old friends. It seemed as if they had 
suddenly been restored to him, after five long years 
of separation ; his heart was overflowing with affec- 
tion for them, too full to speak just yet ! Overflow- 
ing, indeed, with the love of love, the love of life, the 
love of death — the love of all that is, and ever was, 
and ever will be ! just as in his old way. 

He could have liugged them both in the open street, 
before the whole world ; and the delight of it was 
that this was no dream ; about that there was no mis- 
take. He was himself again at last, after five years, 
and wid3 awake ; and he owed it all to Trilby ! 

And what did he feel for Trilby ? He couldn't tell 
yet. It was too vast as yet to be measured ; and, alas ! 
it was weighted with such a burden of sorrow and re- 
gret that he might well put off the thought of it a little 
while longer, and gather in what bliss he might : like 
the man whose hearing has been restored after long 
years, he would revel in the mere physical delight of 
hearing for a space, and not go out of his way as yet 
to listen for the bad news that was already in the air, 
and would come to roost quite soon enough. 

Taffy and the Laird were silent also ; Trilby's voice 
was still in their ears and hearts, her image in their 
eyes, and utter bewilderment still oppressed them and 
kept them dumb. 

It was a warm and balmy night, almost like mid- 
summer ; and they stopped at the first cafe they met 
on the Boulevard de la Madeleine {comme autrefois)^ 
and ordered bocks of beer, and sat at a little table on 



the pavement, the only one unoccupied ; for the cafe 
was ah^eady crowded, the hum of lively talk was 
great, and " la Sevengali " Avas in every mouth. 

The Laird was the first to speak. He emptied his 
bock at a draught, and called for another, and lit a 
cigar, and said, " I don't believe it was Trilby, after 
all !" It was the first time her name had been men- 
tioned between them that evening — and for five years! 

" Good heavens !" said Taffy. " Can you doubt it?" 

" Oh yes ! that was Trilby," said Little Billee. 

Then the Laird proceeded to explain that, putting 
aside the impossibility of Trilby's ever being taught 
to sing in tune, and her well-remembered loathing for 
Svengali, he had narrowly scanned her face through 
his opera -glass, and found that in spite of a likeness 
quite marvellous there were well - marked differences. 
Pier face was narrower and longer, her ej'es larger, 
and their expression not the same ; then she seemed 
taller and stouter, and her shoulders broader and more 
drooping, and so forth. 

But the others wouldn't hear of it, and voted him 
cracked, and declared they even recognized the pecul- 
iar twang of her old speaking voice in the voice she 
now sang with, especially when she sang low down. 
And they all three fell to discussing the wonders 
of her performance like everybody else all round ; 
Little Billee leading, with an eloquence and a seeming 
of technical musical knowledge that quite impressed 
them, and made them feel happy and at ease ; for they 
were anxious for his sake about the effect this sudden 
and so unexpected sight of her would have upon him 
after all that had passed. 



337 

He seemed transcenclentlj happy and elate — incom- 
prehensibly so, in fact — and looked at them both with 
quite a new light in his eyes, as if all the music he had 
heard had trebled not only his joy in being alive, but 
liis pleasure at being with them. Evidently he had 
quite outgrown his old passion for her, and that was a 
comfort indeed ! 

But Little Billee knew better. 

He knew that his old passion for her had all come 
back, and was so overwhelming and immense that he 
could not feel it just yet, nor yet the hideous pangs of 
a jealousy so consuming that it would burn up his life. 
He gave himself another twenty-four hours. 

But he had not to wait so long. He woke up after 
a short, uneasy sleep that very night, to find that the 
flood was over him ; and he realized how hopelessly, 
desperately, wickedly, insanely he loved this woman, 
who might have been his, but was now the wife of 
another man ; a greater than he, and one to whom she 
owed it that she was more glorious than any other 
Avoman on earth — a queen among queens — a goddess ! 
for what was any earthly throne compared to that she 
established in the hearts and souls of all who came 
within the sight and hearino;' of her ! beautiful as she 
Avas besides — beautiful, beautiful ! And what must be 
her love for the man who had taught her and trained 
her, and revealed her towering genius to herself and to 
the world !— a man resplendent also, handsome and tall 
and commanding — a great artist from the crown of his 
head to the sole of his foot ! 

And the remembrance of them — hand in hand, 
master and pupil, husband and wife — smiling and 

22 




"and the remembrance of them — HAND IN HANI)' 



bowing in the face of all that splendid tumult they 
had called forth and could not quell, stung and tort- 
ured and maddened him so that he could not lie still, 
but got up and raged and rampaged up and dovVn his 
hot, narrow, stuffy bedroom, and longed for his old 
familiar brain - disease to come back and narcotize his 
trouble, and be his friend, and stay with him till he 
died! 

Where was he to fly for relief from such new mem- 
ories as these, which would never cease ; and the 
old memories, and all the glamour and grace of them 
that had been so suddenly called out of the grave ? 
And how could he escape, now that he felt the sight 



339 

of her face and the sound of her voice Avould be a 
craving — a daily want — hke that of some poor starv- 
ing outcast for warmth and meat and driidv ? 

And little innocent, pathetic, ineffable, well-remem- 
bered sweetnesses of her changing face kept painting 
themselves on his retina ; and incomparable tones of 
this new thing, her voice, her infinite voice, went ring- 
ing in his head, till he all but shrieked aloud in his 
agony. 

And then the poisoned and delirious sweetness of 
those mad kisses 

"by hopeless fancy feigned 
On lips that are for others " ! 

And then the grewsome physical jealousy, that 
miserable inheritance of all artistic sons of Adam, 
that plague and torment of the dramatic, plastic im- 
agination, which can idealize so well, and yet realize, 
alas ! so keenly. After three or four hours spent like 
this, he could stand it no longer ; madness was lying 
his way. So he hurried on a garment, and went and 
knocked at Taffy's door. 

"Good God! Avhat's the matter with you?" ex- 
claimed the good Taff}'-, as Little Billee tumbled into 
his room, calling out : 

" Oh, Taffy, Taffy, I've g-g-gone mad, I think !" 
And then, shivering all over, and stammering incohe- 
rently, he tried to tell his friend what was the matter 
with him, with great simplicity. 

Taffy, in much alarm, slipped on his trousers and 
made Little Billee get into his bed, and sat by his side 
holding his hand. He was greatly perplexed, fearing 



340 

the recurrence of another attack like that of five years 
back. He didn't dare leave him for an instant to 
wake the Laird and send for a doctor. 

Suddenly Little Billee buried his face in the pillow 
and began to sob, and some instinct tokl Taffy this 
was the best thing that could happen. The boy had 
always been a highly strung, emotional, over-excitable, 
over - sensitive, and quite uncontrolled mammy's-dar- 
ling, a cry-baby sort of chap, who had never been to 
school. It was all a part of his genius, and also a part 
of his charm. It would do him good once more to 
have a good blub after five years ! After a while 
Little Billee grew quieter, and then suddenly he said : 
" What a miserable ass you must think me, what an 
unmanly duffer !" 

" Why, my friend ?" 

"Why, for going on in this idiotic way. I really 
couldn't help it. I went mad, I tell you. I've been 
walking up and down my room all night, till every- 
thing seemed to go round." 

" So have I." 

"You? What for?" 

" The very same reason." 

" What r 

" I was just as fond of Trilby as you were. Only 
she happened to prefer your 

" ^Yhat .^" cried Little Billee again. " You were fond 
of Trilby ?" 

"I believe you, m}'' boy !" 

" In love with her ?" 

" I believe you, my boy !" 

" She never knew it, then !" 




" ' I BELIEVE TOU, MY BOY !' " 



" Oh yes, she did." 

" She never told mo, then !" 

" Didn't she ? That's hke her. 1 tokl her, at all 
events. I asked her to marry me." 

" Well— I mil damned ! AVhen ?" 

" That day we took her to Meudon, with Jeannot, 
and dined at the Garde Champetre's, and she danced 
the cancan with Sand}^" 

" Well — I am, — And she refused you?" 

" Apparently so." 

" Well, I — Why on earth did she refuse you?" 

" Oh, I suppose she'd already begun to fancy you, 
my friend. // y en a toujours un autre /" 



343 

"Fancy me — prefer me — to youf^ 

"Well, yes. It does seem odd — eh, old fellow? 
But there's no accounting for tastes, you know. She's 
built on such an ample scale herself, I suppose, that 
she likes little uns — contrast, you see. She's very 
maternal, I think. Besides, you're a smart little chap ; 
and you ain't half bad; and you've got brains and 
talent, and lots of cheek, and all that. I'm rather a 
ponderous kind of party." 

" Well — I am damned !" 

" C'est comme ga! I took it lying down, you see." 

" Does the Laird know V 

"No; and I don't want him to — nor anybody else." 

"Taffy, what a regular downright old trump you 
are !" 

" Glad you think so ; an^diow, we're both in the 
same boat, and we've got to make the best of it. She's 
another man's wife, and probably she's very fond of 
him. I'm sure she ought to be, cad as he is, after all 
he's done for her. So there's an end of it." 

"Ah ! there'll never be an end of it for me — never — 
never — oh, never, my God ! She would have married 
me but for my mother's meddling, and that stupid old 
ass, my uncle. What a wife! Think of all she must 
have in her heart and brain, only to sing like that ! 
And, O Lord ! how beautiful she is — a goddess ! Oh, 
the brow and cheek and chin, and the way her head's 
put on ! did you ever see anything like it ! Oh, if 
only I hadn't written and told my mother I was going 
to marry her ! why, we should have been man and 
wife for five years by this time — living at Barbizon — 
painting away like mad ! Oh, what a heavenly life ! 



343 

Oh, curse all officious meddling with other people's 
affairs ! Oh ! oh ! . . ." 

" There you go again ! What's the good ? and where 
do /come in, my friend ? /should have been no bet- 
ter off, old fellow — worse than ever, I think." 

Then there was a long silence. 

At length Little Billee said : 

" Taffy, I can't tell you what a trump you are. All 
I've ever thought of 3^ou — and God knows that's 
enough — will be nothing to what I shall always think 
of you after this." 

" All right, old chap." 

"And now I think Pm all right again, for a time — 
and I shall cut back to bed. Good-night ! Thanks 
more than I can ever express !" And Little Billee, re- 
stored to his balance, cut back to his own bed just as 
the day was breaking. 



Ipart Seventb 

"The moon made thy lips pale, beloved ; 
The wind made thy bosom chill ; 
The night did shed 
On thy dear head 
Its frozen dew, and thou didst lie 
Where the bitter breath of the naked sky 
Might visit lliee at will." 

Next morning our three friends lay late abed, and 
breakfasted in their rooms. 

They had all three passed "white nights" — even 
the Laird, who had tossed about and pressed a sleep- 
less pillow till dawn, so excited had he been by the 
wonder of Trilby's reincarnation, so perplexed by his 
own doubts as to whether it was really Trilby or 
not. 

And certain haunting tones of her voice, that voice 
so cruelly sweet (which clove the stillness with a clang 
so utterly new, so strangely heart-piercing and seduc- 
tive, that the desire to hear it once more became nos- 
talgic — almost an ache!), certain bits and bars and 
phrases of the music she had sung, unspeakable felici- 
ties and facilities of execution ; sudden exotic warmths, 
fragrances, tendernesses, graces, depths, and breadths ; 
quick changes from grave to gay, from rough to 
smooth, from great metallic brazen clangors to soft 
golden suavities ; all the varied modes of sound we 
try so vainly to borrow from vocal nature by means 



345 

of wind and reed and string — all this new " Trilby- 
ness " kept echoing in his brain all night (for he was 
of a nature deeply musical), and sleep had been impos- 
sible to him. 

"As when we dwell upon a word we know, 
Relocating, till the word we know so well 
Becomes a wonder, and we know not why," 

SO dwelt the Laird upon the poor old tune " Ben Bolt," 
which kept singing itself over and over again in his 
tired consciousness, and maddened him with novel, 
strange, unhackneyed, unsuspected beauties such as he 
had never dreamed of in any earthly music. 

It had become a wonder, and he knew not why ! 

Tliey spent what was left of the morning at the 
Louvre, and tried to interest themselves in the "Mar- 
riage of Cana," and the " Woman at the Well," and 
Vandyck's man with the glove, and the little princess 
of Velasquez, and Lisa Gioconda's smile : it was of no 
use trying. There was no sight worth looking at in 
all Paris but Trilby in her golden raiment ; no other 
princess in the world ; no smile but hers, when tlirough 
her parted lips came bubbling Chopin's Impromptu. 
They had not long to stay in Paris, and they must 
drink of that bubbling fountain once more — coute que 
coute ! They went to the Salle des Bashibazoucks, and 
found that all seats all over the house had been taken 
for days and weeks ; and the " queue " at the door had 
already begun ! and they had to give up all hopes of 
slaking this particular thirst. 

Then they went and lunched perfunctorily, and 
talked desultorily over lunch, and read criticisms of 



346 

la Svengali's debut in the morning papers — a chorus 
of journalistic acclamation gone mad, a frenzied eulogy 
in every key — but nothing was good enough for them ! 
Brand-new words were wanted— another language ! 

Then they wanted a long walk, and could think of 
nowhere to go in all Paris — that immense Paris, where 
they had promised themselves to see so much that the 
Aveek they were to spend there had seemed too short ! 

Looking in a paper, they saw it announced that the 
band of the Imperial Guides would play that after- 
noon in the Pre Catelan, Bois de Boulogne, and 
thought they might as well walk there as anywhere 
else, and walk back again in time to dine with the 
Passefils — a prandial function which did not promise 
to be very amusing ; but still it was something to kill 
the evening with, since they couldn't go and hear 
Trilby again. 

Outside the Pre Catelan they found a crowd of cabs 
and carriages, saddle-horses and grooms. One might 
have thought one's self in the height of the Paris sea- 
son. They went in, and strolled about here and there, 
and listened to the band, wiiich was famous (it has 
performed in London at the Crystal Palace), and they 
looked about and studied life, or tried to. 

Suddenly they saw, sitting with three ladies (one of 
whom, the eldest, was in black), a very smart young 
officer, a guide, all red and green and gold, and recog- 
nized their old friend Zouzou. They bowed, and he 
knew them at once, and jumped up and came to them 
and greeted them warmly, especially his old friend 
TaflFy, whom he took to his mother — the lady in black 
—and introduced to the other ladies, the younger of 



847 

whom, strangely unlike the rest of her countrywomen, 
was so lamentably, so pathetically plain that it would be 
brutal to attempt the cheap and eas}^ task of describing 
her. It was Miss Lavinia Hunks, the famous American 
millionairess, and her mother. Then the good Zouzou 
came back and talked to the Laird and Little Billee. 

Zouzou, in some subtle and indescribable way, had 
become very ducal indeed. 

He looked extremely distinguished, for one thing, in 
his beautiful guide's uniform, and was most gracefully 
and winningly polite. lie inquired warmly after Mrs. 
and Miss Bagot, and begged Little Billee would recall 
him to their amiable remembrance when he saw them 
again. He expressed most sympathetically his de- 
light to see Little Billee looking so strong and so well 
(Little Billee looked like a pallid little washed-out 
ghost, after his white night). 

They talked of Dodor. He said how attached he 
was to Dodor, and always should be ; but Dodor, it 
seemed, had made a great mistake in leaving the army 
and going into a retail business {petit commerce). He 
had done for himself — degringoU ! He should have 
stuck to the dragons — with a little patience and good 
conduct he would have " won his epaulet " — and then 
one might have arranged for him a good little mar- 
riage — un imrti eonvenable — for he was "tres joli gar- 
9on, Dodor ! bonne tournure — et tres gentiment ne ! 
C'est tres ancien, les Eigolot — dans le Poitou, je crois 
— Lafarce, et tout 9a ; tout a fait bien !" 

It was difficult to realize that this polished and dis- 
creet and somewhat patronizing young man of the 
world was the jolly dog who had gone after Little 



S48 

Billee's hat on all fours in the Rue Yieille des Mau- 
vais Ladres and brought it back in his mouth — the 
Caryhatide ! 

Little Billee little knew that Monsieur le Due de la 
Rochemartel-Boissegur had quite recently delighted a 
very small and select and most august imperial supper- 
party at Compiegne with this very story, not blinking 
a single detail of his own share in it — and had given 
a most touching and sympathetic description of " le 
joli petit peintre anglais qui s'appelait Litrebili, et 
ne pouvait pas se tenir sur ses jambes — et qui pleu- 
rait d'amour fraternel dans les bras de mon copain 
Dodor !" 

"Ah! Monsieur Gontran. ce que je donnerais pour 
avoir vu ca !" had said the greatest lady in France ; 
" un de mes zouaves— a quatre pattes— dans la rue — 
un chapeau dans la bouche — oh — c'est impaj'able !" 

Zouzou kept these blackguard bohemian reminis- 
cences for the imperial circle alone — to which it 
was suspected that he was secretly ralljing himself. 
Among all outsiders — especially within the narrow 
precincts of the cream of the noble Faubourg (which 
remained aloof from the Tuileries) — he was a very 
proper and gentlemanlike person indeed, as his brother 
had been — and, in his mother's fond belief, " tres bien 
pensant, tres bien vu, a Frohsdorf et a Eome." 

On. lid aurait donne le hoii Dieu sans coi^fession — 
as Madame Vinard had said of Little Billee — they 
would have shriven him at sight, and admitted him to 
the holy communion on trust ! 

He did not present Little Billee and the Laird to 
his mother, nor to Mrs. and Miss Hunks; that honor 



349 

was reserved for " the Man of Blood " alone ; nor did he 
ask where they were staying, nor invite them to call on 
him. But in parting he expressed the immense pleas- 
ure it had given him to meet them again, and the hope 
he had of some day shaking their hands in London. 

As the friends walked back to Paris together, it 
transpired that " the Man of Blood " had been invited 
by Madame Duchesse Mere (Maman Duchesse, as Zou- 
zou called her) to dine with her next day, and meet the 
Hunkses at a furnished apartment she had taken in the 
Place Yendome ; for they had let (to the Hunkses) the 
Hotel de la Rochemartel in the Kue de Lille ; they had 
also been obliged to let their place in the country, le 
chateau de Boissegur (to Monsieur Despoires, or " des 
Poires," as he chose to spell himself on his visiting- 
cards — the famous soap - manufacturer — " Un tres 
brave homme, a ce qu'on dit !" and whose only son, 
by-the-way, soon after married Mademoiselle Jeanne- 
Adelaide d'Amaury-Brissac de Roncesvaulx de Boisse- 
gur de la Rochemartel). 

" II ne fait pas gras chez nous a present — je vous as- 
sure !" Madame Duchesse M^re had pathetically said 
to Taffy — but had given him to understand that things 
would be very much better for her son, in the event 
of his marriage with Miss Hunks. 

" Good heavens !" said Little Billee, on hearing this ; 
" that grotesque little bogy in blue ? Why, she's de- 
formed — she squints — she's a dwarf, and looks like an 
idiot ! Millions or no millions, the man who marries 
her is a felon ! As long as there are stones to break 
and a road to break them on, the able-bodied man who 
marries a woman like that for anything but pity and 



350 

kindness — and even then — dishonors himself, insults 
his ancestry, and inflicts on his descendants a wrong 
that nothing will ever redeem — he nips them in the bud 
— he blasts them forever ! He ought to be cut by his 
fellow-men — sent to Coventry — to jail — to penal servi- 
tude for life ! He ought to have a separate hell to 
himself when he dies. He ought to — " 

" Shut up, you little blaspheming ruffian !" said the 
Laird. " Where do you expect to go to, yourself, with 
such frightful sentiments ? And what would become 
of 3'^our beautiful old twelfth-century dukedoms, with 
a hundred yards of back-frontage opposite the Louvre, 
on a beautiful historic river, and a dozen beautiful his- 
toric names, and no money — if you had your way?" 
and the Laird wunk his historic wink. 

" Twelfth-century dukedoms be damned !" said Taffy 
au grand serieux, as usual. " Little Billee's quite right, 
and Zouzou makes me sick! Besides, what does she 
marry him for — not for his beauty either, I guess ! 
She's his fellow -criminal, his deliberate accomplice, 
paHlceps delicti^ accessory before the act and after ! 
She has no right to marry at all ! tar and feathers and 
a rail for both of them — and for Maman Duchesse too 
— and I suppose that's why I refused her invitation to 
dinner ! and now let's go and dine with Dodor — . . . 
anyhow Dodor's young woman doesn't marry him for 
a dukedom — or even his ' Cilq'' — inals Vien pour ses 
heaux yeux! and if the Rigolots of the future turn out 
less nice to look at than their sire, and not quite so 
amusing, they will probably be a great improvement 
on him in many other ways. There's room enough — 
and to spare !" 




liliiiiiiiiiiii 



"maman dcchesse" 



352 

'"Ear! 'ear!" said Little Billee (who always grew 
flippant when Taffy got on his high horse). "Your 
'ealth and song, sir — them's my sentiments to a T ! 
What shall we 'ave the pleasure of drinkin', after that 
wery nice 'armony ?" 

After which they walked on in silence, each, no 
doubt, musing on the general contrariness of things, 
and imagining what splendid little Wynnes, or Bagots, 
or McAlisters might have been ushered into a deca- 
dent world for its regeneration if fate had so willed it 
that a certain magnificent and singularly gifted gri- 
sette, etc., etc., etc. . , . 

Mrs. and Miss Hunks passed them as they walked 
along, in a beautiful blue barouch with C springs — 
un '■'' huit-ressorts'''' ^ Maman Duchesse passed them in 
a hired fly ; Zouzou passed them on horseback ; "tout 
Paris " passed them ; but they were none the wiser, 
and agreed that the show was not a patch on that in 
Hyde Park during the London season. 

When they reached the Place de la Concorde it was 
that lovely hour of a fine autumn day in beautiful 
bright cities when all the lamps are lit in the shops 
and streets and under the trees, and it is still day- 
light — a quickly fleeting joy j and as a special treat on 
this particular occasion the sun set, and up rose the 
yellow moon over eastern Paris, and floated above the 
chimney-pots of the Tuileries. 

They stopped to gaze at the homeward procession of 
cabs and carriages, as they used to do in the old times. 
Tout Paris was still passing ; tout Paris is very long. 

They stood among a little crowd of sight-seers like 
themselves, Little Billee right in front — in the road. 



353 

Presently a magnificent open carriage came by — 
more magnificent than even the Hunkses', with liv- 
eries and harness quite vulgarly resplendent — almost 
Napoleonic. 

Lolling back in it lay Monsieur et Madame Svengali 
— he with his broad-brimmed felt sombrero over his 
long black curls, wrapped in costly furs, smoking his 
bis: cigar of the Havana. 

By his side la Svengali — also in sables — with a large 
black velvet hat on, her light brown hair done up in a 
huge knot on the nape of her neck. She was rouged 
and pearl-powdered, and her eyes were blackened be- 
neath, and thus made to look twice their size ; but in 
spite of all such disfigurements she was a most splen- 
did vision, and caused quite a little sensation in the 
crowd as she came slowly by. 

Little Billee's heart was in his mouth. He caught 
Svengali's eye, and saw him speak to her. She turned 
her head and looked at him standing there — they 
both did. Little Billee bowed. She stared at him 
with a cold stare of disdain, and cut him dead — so did 
Svengali. And as they passed he heard them both 
snigger — she with a little high-pitched, flippant snigger 
worthy of a London bar-maid. 

Little Billee was utterly crushed, and everything 
seemed turning round. 

The Laird and Taffy had seen it all without losing 
a detail. The Svengalis had not even looked their 
way. The Laird said : 

"It's not Trilby— I swear! She could oiever have 
done that — it's not in her ! and it's another face alto- 
gether—I'm sure of it!" 



354 

Tafify was also staggered and in doubt. They caught 
hold of Little Billee, each by an arm, and walked him 
off to the boulevards. He was quite demoralized, and 

wanted not to dine at 
the Passefils'. He want- 
ed to go straight home 




THK CUT DIRECT 



at once. He longed for his mother as he used to long 
for her when he was in trouble as a small boy and she 
was away from home — longed for her desperately — to 
hug her and hold her and fondle her, and be fondled, 
for his own sake and hers ; all his old love for her 
had come back in full — with what arrears! all his old 
love for his sistier, for his old home. 

When they went back to the hotel to Jress (for 



355 

Dodor had begged them to put on their best evening 
war-paint, so as to impress his future mother-in-law), 
Little Billee became fractious and intractable. And it 
was only on Taffy's promising that he would go all 
the way to Devonshire with him on the morrow, and 
stay with him there, that he could be got to dress and 
dine. 

The huge Taffy lived entirely by his affections, and 
he hadn't many to live by — the Laird, Trilby, and 
Little Billee. 

Trilby was unattainable, the Laird was quite strong 
and independent enough to get on by himself, and 
Taffy had concentrated all his faculties of protection 
and affection on Little Billee, and was equal to any 
burden or responsibility all this instinctive young 
fathering might involve. 

In the first place. Little Billee had always been able 
to do quite easily, and better than any one else in the 
world, the very things Taffy most longed to do him- 
self and couldn't, and this inspired the good Taffy with 
a chronic reverence and wonder he could not have 
expressed in words. 

Then Little Billee was physically small and weak, 
and incapable of self-control. Then he was generous, 
amiable, affectionate, transparent as crystal, without 
an atom of either egotism or conceit ; and had a gift 
of amusing you and interesting you by his talk (and 
its complete sincerity) that never palled ; and even his 
silence was charming — one felt so sure of him — so 
there was hardly any sacrifice, little or big, that big 
Taffy was not ready and glad to make for Little Bil- 
lee, On the other hand, there lay deep down under 



356 

Taffy's surface irascibility and earnestness about tri- 
fles (and beneath his harmless vanity of the strong 
man), a long-suffering patience, a real humility, a ro- 
bustness of judgment, a sincerity and all-roundness, a 
completeness of sympathy, that made him very good 
to trust and safe to lean upon. Then his powerful, 
impressive aspect, his great stature, the gladiatorlike 
poise of his small round head on his big neck and 
shoulders, his huge deltoids and deep chest and slen- 
der loins, his clean-cut ankles and wrists, all the long 
and bold and highly-finished athletic shapes of him, 
that easy grace of strength that made all his move- 
ments a pleasure to watch, and any garment look well 
when he wore it — all this was a perpetual feast to the 
quick, prehensile, aesthetic eye. And then he had such 
a solemn, earnest, lovable way of bending pokers round 
his neck, and breaking them on his arm, and jumping 
his own height (or near it), and lifting up arm-chairs 
by one leg with one hand, and what not else ! 

So that there was hardly any sacrifice, little or big, 
that Little Billee would not accept from big Taffy as 
a mere matter of course — a fitting and proper tribute 
rendered by bodily strength to genius. 

Par nohile fratrum — well met and well mated for 
fast and long-enduring friendship. 



The family banquet at Monsieur Passefil's would 
have been dull but for the irrepressible Dodor, and still 
more for the Laird of Cock pen, who rose to the occa- 
sion, and surpassed himself in geniality, drollery, and 
eccentricity of French grammar and accent. Monsieur 



357 

Passefil was also a droll in his way, and had the quick- 
ly familiar, jocose facetiousness that seems to belong 
to the successful middle-aged bourgeois all over the 
Avorld, when he's not pompous instead (he can even 
be both sometimes). 

Madame Passefil was not jocose. She was much 
impressed by the aristocratic splendor of Taffy, the 
romantic melancholy and refinement of Little Billee, 
and their quiet and dignified politeness. She always 
spoke of Dodor as Monsieur de Lafarce, though the 
rest of the family (and one or two friends who had 
been invited) always called him IVIonsieur Theodore, 
and he was officially known as Monsieur Rigolot. 

Whenever Madame Passefil addressed him or spoke 
of him in this aristocratic manner (which happened 
very often), Dodor would wink at his friends, with 
his tongue in his cheek. It seemed to amuse him 
beyond measure. 

Mademoiselle Ernestine was evidently too much in 
love to say anything, and seldom took her e3'es off 
Monsieur Theodore, whom she had never seen in even- 
ing dress before. It must be owned that he looked 
very nice — more ducal than even Zouzou — and to be 
Madame de Lafarce en persjpective^ and the future 
owner of such a brilliant husband as Dodor, was enough 
to turn a stronger little bourgeois head than Made- 
moiselle Ernestine's. 

She was not beautiful, but healthy, well grown, well 
brought up, and presumably of a sweet, kind, and 
amiable disposition — an ingenue fresh from her con- 
vent — innocent as a child, no doubt ; and it was felt 
that Dodor had done better for himself (and for his 



358 



race) than Monsieur le Due. Little Dodors need have 
no fear. 

After dinner the ladies and gentlemen left the 
dining-room together, and sat in a pretty salon ov^er- 
looking the boulevard, where cigarettes were allowed, 
and there was music. Mademoiselle Ernestine la- 
boriously played " Les Cloches du Monastere" (by 
Monsieur Lefebure-Wely, if I'm not mistaken). It's 
the most bourgeois piece of music I know. 

Then Dodor, with 
his sweet high voice, so 
strangely pathetic and 
true, sang goody-goody 
little French sonffs of 







•'petit enfant, j'aimais d'dn amour tkndre 
ma mere et dieu — saintes affections ! 
puis mon amour aux fleurs se fit entendre, 
puis aux oiseaux. et puis avx papillons j" 



359 

innocence (of which he seemed to have an endless re- 
pertoire) to his future wife's conscientious accompani- 
ment — to the immense delight, also, of all his future 
family, who w^ere almost in tears — and to the great 
amusement of the Laird, at whom he winked in the 
most pathetic parts, putting his forefinger to the side 
of his nose, like Noah Claypole in Oliver Twist. 

The wonder of the hour, la Svengali, was discussed, 
of course ; it was unavoidable. But our friends did not 
think it necessary to reveal that she was " la grande 
Trilby." That would soon transpire by itself. 

And, indeed, before the month was a w^eek older 
the papers were full of nothing else. 

Madame Svengali — " la grande Trilby " — was the 
only daughter of the honorable and reverend Sir 
Lord O'Ferrall. 

She had run away from the primeval forests and 
lonely marshes of le Dublin, to lead a free-and-easy 
life among the artists of the quartier latin of Paris — 
une vie de hoheme ! 

She was the Venus Anadyomene from top to toe. 

She was hlanche comme neige, avec un volcan dans 
le conur. 

Casts of her alabaster feet could be had at Brucci- 
ani's, in the Rue de la Souriciere St. Denis. (He made 
a fortune.) 

Monsieur Ingres had painted her left foot on the 
wall of a studio in the Place St. Anatole des Arts ; 
and an eccentric Scotch milord (le Comte de Pen- 
cock) had bought the house containing the fiat con- 
taining the studio containing the wall on which it 
was painted, had had the house pulled down, and 



360 

the wall framed and glazed and sent to his castle of 
Edimbourg. 

(This, unfortunately, was in excess of the truth. It 
was found impossible to execute the Laird's wish, on 
account of the material the wall was made of. So the 
Lord Count of Pencock — such was Madame Vinard's 
version of Sandy's nickname — had to forego his pur- 
chase.) 

Next morning our friends were in readiness to leave 
Paris ; even the Laird had had enough of it, and longed 
to get back to his work again — a " Hari-kari in Yoko- 
hama." (He had never been to Japan ; but no more 
had any one else in those early days.) 

They had just finished breakfast, and were sitting 
in the court-yard of the hotel, which was crowded, as 
usual. 

Little Billee went into the hotel post-office to de- 
spatch a note to his mother. Sitting sideways there 
at a small table and reading letters was Svengali — 
of all people in tlie world. But for these two and a 
couple of clerks the room was empty. 

Svengali looked up ; they were quite close to- 
gether. 

Little Billee, in his nervousness, began to shake, 
and half put out his hand, and drew it back again, 
seeing the look of hate on Svengali's face. 

Svengali jumped up, put his letters together, and 
passing by Little Billee on liis way to the door, called 
him " verfluchter Schweinhund," and deliberately spat 
in his face. 

Little Billee was paralyzed for a second or two; 



361 

then be ran after Svengali, and canght him just at 
the top of the marble stairs, and kicked him, and 
knocked off his hat, and made him drop all his let- 
ters. Svengali turned round and struck him over the 
mouth and made it bleed, and Little Billee hit out like 
a fury, but with no effect : he couldn't reach high 
enough, for Svengali was well over six feet. 

There was a croAvd round them in a minute, includ- 
ing the beautiful old man in the court suit and gold 
chain, who called out : 

" Vite ! vite ! un coramissaire de police !" — a cry 
that was echoed all over the place. 

Taffy saw the row, and shouted, " Bravo, little un !" 
and jumping up from his table, jostled his way through 
the crowd ; and Little Billee, bleeding and gasping and 
perspiring and stammering, said: 

" He spat in my face, Taffy — damn him ! I'd never 
even spoken to him — not a word, I swear !" 

Svengali had not reckoned on Taffy's being there ; 
he recognized him at once, and turned white. 

Taffy, who had dog-skin gloves on, put out his right 
hand, and deftly seized Svengali's nose between his 
fore and middle fingers and nearly pulled it off, and 
swung his head two or three times backward and for- 
ward by it, and then from side to side, Svengali hold- 
ing on to his wrist ; and then, letting him go, gave 
him a sounding open-handed smack on his right cheek 
— and a smack on the face from Taffy (even in play) 
was no joke, I'm told ; it made one smell brimstone, 
and see and hear things that didn't exist. 

Svengali gasped worse than Little Billee, and 
couldn't speak for a while. Then he said, 



362 



Lache — grand lache! che fous enf(3rrai mes te- 



moins 



r' 



"At your orders!" said Taffy, in beautiful French, 
and drew out his card -case, and gave him his card in 
quite the orthodox French manner, adding : " I shall 
be here till to-morrow at twelve — but that is my 
London address, in case I don't hear from you be- 
fore I leave. Fm sorry, but you really mustn't spit, 
you know — it's not done. I will come to you when- 
ever you send for me — even if I have to come from 
the end of the world." 

" Tres bien ! tres bien !" said a military -looking old 
gentleman close by, who gave Taffy his card, in case 
he might be of any service — and who seemed quite 
delighted at the row — and indeed it was really pleas- 
ant to note with what a smooth, flowing, rhythmical 
spontaneity the good Taffy could always improvise 
these swift little acts of summary retributive justice: 
no hurry or scurry or flurry whatever — not an inhar- 
monious gesture, not an infelicitous line — the very 
poetry of violence, and its only excuse ! 

Whatever it was worth, this was Taffy's special 
gift, and it never failed him at a pinch. 

When the commissaire de police arrived, all was 
over. Svengali had gone away in a cab, and Taffy 
put himself at the disposition of the commissaire. 

They went into the post-office and discussed it all 
with the old mihtary gentleman, and tlie major-domo in 
velvet, and the two clerks who had seen the original in- 
sult. And all that w^as required of Taffy and his friends 
for the present was " their names, prenames, titles, 
qualities, age, address, nationality, occupation," etc. 



364 

" C'est une affaire qui s'arrangera autrement, et au- 
tre part !" had said the military gentleman — monsieur 
le general Comte de la Tour-aux-Loups. 

So it blew over quite simply ; and all that day 
a fierce unholy joy burned in Taffy's choleric blue 
eye. 

Not, indeed, that he had any wish to injure Trilby's 
husband, or meant to do him any grievous bodily 
harm, whatever happened. But he was glad to have 
given Svengali a lesson in manners. 

That Svengali should injure him never entered into 
his calculations for a moment. Besides, he didn't be- 
lieve Sveno^ali would show fio'ht ; and in this he was 
not mistaken. 

But he had, for hours, the feel of that long, thick, 
shapely Hebrew nose being kneaded between his 
gloved knuckles, and a pleasing sense of the effective- 
ness of the tweak he had given it. So he went about 
chewing the cud of that heavenly remembrance all 
day, till reflection brought remorse, and he felt sorry ; 
for he was really the mildest-mannered man that ever 
broke a head ! 

Only the sight of Little Billee's blood (which had 
been made to flow bv such an unequal antagonist) had 
roused the old Adam. 

No message came from Svengali to ask for the 
names and addresses of Taffy's seconds ; so Dodor and 
Zouzou (not to mention Mister the general Count of 
the Tooraloorals, as the Laird called him) were left 
undisturbed ; and our three musketeers went back to 
London clean of blood, whole of limb, and heartily 
sick of Paris. 



365 

Little Billee stayed with his mother and sister in 
Devonshire till Christmas, Taffy staying at the village 
inn. 

It was Taffy who told Mrs. Bagot about la Sven- 
gali's all but certain identity with Trilby, after Little 
Billee had gone to bed, tired and worn out, the night 
of their arrival. 

" Good heavens !" said poor Mrs. Bagot. " Why, 
that's the new singing woman who's coming over here! 
There's an article about her in to-day's Times. It 
sa3ys she's a wonder, and that there's no one like her ! 
Surely that can't be the Miss O'Ferrall I saw in 
Paris!" 

" It seems impossible — but I'm almost certain.it is — 
and Willy has no doubts in the matter. On the other 
hand, McAlister declares it isn't." 

" Oh, what trouble ! So thats why poor Willy 
looks so ill and miserable ! It's all come back again. 
Could she sing at all then, when you knew her in 
Paris?" 

"Not a note — her attempts at singing were quite 
grotesque." 

'' Is she still very beautiful ?" 

" Oh yes ; there's no doubt about that ; more than 
ever !" 

"And her singing — is that so very wonderful? I 
remember that she had a beautiful voice in speaking," 

"Wonderful? Ah, yes; I never heard or dreamed 
the like of it. Grisi, Alboni, Patti — not one of them 
to be mentioned in the same breath !" 

" Good heavens ! Why, she must be simply irre- 
sistible! I wonder you're not in love with her your- 



366 

self. How dreadful these sirens are, wrecking the 
peace of families !" 

" You mustn't forget that she gave way at once at 
a word from you, Mrs, Bagot ; and she was very fond 
of Willy. She wasn't a siren then." 

"Oh yes — oh yes! that's true — she behaved very 
well — she did her duty — I can't deny that! You 
must try and forgive me, Mr. Wynne— although I can't 
forgive her! — that dreadful illness of poor AYilly's — 
that bitter time in Paris. . . ." 

And Mrs. Bagot began to cry, and Taffy forgave. 
" Oh, Mr. Wynne — let us still hope that there's some 
mistake — that it's only somebody like her! Why, 
she's coming to sing in London after Christmas ! My 
poor boy's infatuation will only increase. What shall 
I do?" 

" Well — she's another man's wife, you see. So 
Willy's infatuation is bound to burn itself out as soon 
as he fully recognizes that important fact. Besides, 
she cut him dead in the Champs £lysees — and her 
husband and Willy had a row next day at the hotel, 
and cuffed and kicked each other — that's rather a bar 
to any future intimacy, I think." 

" Oh, Mr. Wynne ! my son cuffing and kicking a 
man whose wife he's in love with ! Good heavens !" 

" Oh, it was all right — the man had grossly insulted 
him — and Willy behaved like a brick, and got the 
best of it in the end, and nothing came of it. I saw 
it all." 

" Oh, Mr. Wynne — and you didn't interfere ?" 

"Oh yes, I interfered — everybody interfered. It 
was all right, I assure you. Ho bones were broken 




" I SDPPOSE YOU DO ALL THIS KIND OF THING FOR MERE 
AMDSEMKNT, MR. WYNNE ?" 

on either side, and there was no nonsense about calling 
out, or swords or pistols, and all that," 

" Thank Heaven !'' 

In a week or two Little Billee grew more like him- 
self again, and pamted endless studies of rocks and 
cliffs and sea — and Taffy painted with him, and was 
very content. The vicar and Little Billee patched up 
their feud. The vicar also took an immense fancy to 
Taffy, whose cousin. Sir Oscar Wynne, he had known 



368 

at college, and lost no opportunity of being hospitable 
and civil to him. And his daughter was away in 
Algiers. 

And all " the nobility and gentry " of the neighbor- 
hood, including "the poor dear marquis" (one of 
whose sons was in Taffy's old regiment), were civil 
and hospitable also to the two painters — and Taffy 
got as much sport as he wanted, and became immense- 
ly popular. And they had, on the whole, a very good 
time till Christmas, and a very pleasant Christmas, if 
not an exuberantly merry one. 

After Christmas Little Billee insisted on going back 
to London — to paint a picture for the Royal Acade- 
my ; and Taffy went with him ; and there was dul- 
ness in the house of Bagot — and many misgivings in 
the maternal heart of its mistress. 

And people of all kinds, high and low, from the 
family at the Court to the fishermen on the little pier 
and their wives and children, missed the two genial 
painters, who were the friends of everybody, and made 
such beautiful sketches of their beautiful coast. 



La Svengali has arrived in London. Her name is 
in every mouth. Her photograph is in the shop-win- 
dows. She is to sing at J 's monster concerts 

next week. She was to have sung sooner, but it seems 
some hitch has occurred — a quarrel between Monsieur 
Svengali and his first violin, who is a very important 
person. 

A crowd of people as usual, only bigger, is assem- 
bled in front of the windows of the Stereoscopic Com- 



369 

pany in Regent Street, gazing at presentments of 
Madame Sevengali in all sizes and costumes. She is 
very beautiful — there is no doubt of that ; and the 
expression of her face is sweet and kind and sad, and 
of such a distinction that one feels an imperial crown 
would become her even better than her modest little 
coronet of golden stars. One of the photographs rep- 
resents her in classical dress, with her left foot on a 
little stool, in something of the attitude of the Venus 
of Milo, except that her hands are clasped behind her 
back ; and the foot is bare but for a Greek sandal, and 
so smooth and delicate and charming, and with so 
rhythmical a set and curl of the five slender toes (the 
big one slightly tip -tilted and well apart from its 
longer and slighter and more aquiline neighbor), that 
this presentment of her sells quicker than all the rest. 

And a little man who, with two bigger men, has 
just forced his way in front says to one of his friends : 
" Look, Sandy, look — the foot ! Now have you got 
any doubts ?" 

" 0-h yes — those are Trilby's toes, sure enough !" 
says Sandy. And they all go in and purchase largely. 

As far as I have been able to discover, the row be- 
tween Svengali and his first violin had occurred at a 
rehearsal in Drury Lane Theatre. 

Svengali, it seems, had never been quite the same 
since the 15th of October previous, and that was the 
day he had got his face slapped and his nose tweaked 
by Taffy in Paris. He had become short-tempered 
and irritable, especially with his wife (if she was his 
wife). Svengali, it seems, had reasons for passionately 
hating Little Billee. 

24 



370 

He had not seen him for five years — not since the 
Christmas festivity in the Place St. Anatole, when 
they had sparred together after supper, and Svengah's 
nose had got in the way on this occasion, and had 
been made to bleed ; but that was not why he hated 
Little Billee. 

When he caught sight of him standing on the curb 
in the Place de la Concorde and watching the proces- 
sion of " tout Paris," he knew him directly, and all his 
hate flared up; he cut him dead, and made his wife 
do the same. 

Kext morning he saw him again in the hotel post- 
office, looking small and weak and flurried, and appar- 
ently alone; and being an Oriental Israelite Hebrew 
Jew, he had not been able to resist the temptation 
of spitting in his face, since he must not throttle him 
to death. 

The minute he liad done this he had regretted the 
folly of it. Little Billee had run after him, and kicked 
and struck him, and he had returned the blow and 
drawn blood ; and then, sudck^nly and quite unexpect- 
edly, had come upon the scene that apparition so 
loathed and dreaded of old — tiie pig-headed York- 
shireinan — the huge British philistine, the irresponsi- 
ble bull, the junker, the ex-Crimean, Front-de-Boeuf, 
who had always remimled him of the brutal and con- 
temptuous sword-clanking, spur-jingiing aristocrats of 
his own country — ruffians tiiat treated Jews like dogs. 
Callous as he was to the woes of others, the self- 
indulgent and highly -strung musician was extra sensi- 
tive about himself — a very bundle of nerves — and 
especially sensitive to pain and rough usage, and by 



371 

no means physically brave. The stern, choleric, in- 
vincible blue eye of the hated Northern gentile had 
cowed him at once. And that violent tweaking of 
his nose, that heavy open-handed blow on his face, 
had so shaken and demoralized him that he had never 
recovered from it. 

He was thinking about it always — night and day 
— and constantly dreaming at night that he was be- 
ing tweaked and slapped over again by a colossal 
nightmare Taffy, and waking up in agonies of terror, 
rage, and shame. All healthy sleep had forsaken 
him. 

Moreover, he was much older than he looked — 
nearly fifty — and far from sound. His life had been 
a long, hard struggle. 

He had for his wife, slave, and pupil a fierce, jeal- 
ous kind of affection that was a source of endless tor- 
ment to him ; for indelibly graven in her heart, which 
he wished to occupy alone, was the never-fading im- 
age of the little English painter, and of this she made 
no secret. 

Gecko no longer cared for the master. All Gecko's 
doglike devotion was concentrated on the slave and 
pupil, Avhom he worshipped with a fierce but pure 
and unselfish passion. The only living soul that 
Svengali could trust was the old Jewess who lived 
with them — his relative — but even she had come to 
love the pupil as much as the master. 

On the occasion of this rehearsal at Drury Lane he 
(Svengali) was conducting and Madame Svengali was 
singing. He interrupted her several times, angrily 
and most unjustly, and told her she was singing out 



373 

of tune, " like a verfluchter tomcat," which was quite 
untrue. She was singing beautifully, " Home, Sweet 
Home." 

Finally he struck her two or three smart blows on 
her knuckles with his little baton, and she fell on her 
knees, weeping and crying out : 

" Oh ! oh ! Svengali ! ne me battez pas, mon ami — 
je fais tout ce que je peux!" 

On which little Gecko had suddenly jumped np and 
struck Svengali on the neck near the collar-bone, and 
then it was seen that he had a little bloody knife in 
his hand, and blood flowed from Svengali's neck, and 
at the sight of it Svengali had fainted ; and Madame 
Svengali had taken his head on her lap, lookmg dazed 
and stupefied, as in a waking dream. 

Gecko had been disarmed, but as Svengali recov- 
ered from his faint and was taken home, the police 
had not been sent for, and the affair was hushed up, 
and a public scandal avoided. But la Svengali's first 

appearance, to Monsieur J 's despair, had to be 

put off for a week. For Svengali would not allow 
her to sing without him ; nor, indeed, would he be 
parted from her for a minute, or trust her out of his 
sight. 

The wound was a slight one. The doctor who at- 
tended Svengali described the wife as being quite im- 
becile, no doubt from grief and anxiety. But she 
never left her husband's bedside for a moment, and 
had the obedience and devotion of a dog. 

When the night came round for the postponed de- 
but, Svengali was allowed by the doctor to go to the 
theatre, but he was absolutely forbidden to conduct. 



374 

His grief and anxiety at this were uncontrollable ; he 
raved like a madman; and Monsieur J was al- 
most as bad. 

Monsieur J had been conducting the Sven- 

gali band at rehearsals during the week, in the ab- 
sence of its master — an easy task. It had been so 
thoroughly drilled and knew its business so well that it 
could almost conduct itself, and it had played all the 
music it had to play (much of which consisted of accom- 
paniments to la Svengali's songs) many times before. 
Her repertoire was immense, and Svengali had written 
these orchestral scores with great care and felicity. 

On the famous night it was arranged that Svengali 
should sit in a box alone, exactly opposite his wife's 
place on the platform, where she could see him well ; 
and a code of simple signals was arranged between him 

and Monsieur J and the band, so that virtually 

he might conduct, himself, from his box should any 
hesitation or hitch occur. This arrangement was re- 
hearsed the day before (a Sunday) and had turned 
out quite successfully, and la Svengali had sung in 
perfection in the empty theatre. 

When Monday evening arrived everything seemed 
to be going smoothly ; the house was soon crammed 
to suffocation, all but the middle box on the grand 
tier. It was not a promenade concert, and the pit 
was turned into guinea stalls (the promenade concerts 
were to be given a week later). 

Right in the middle of these stalls sat the Laird 
and Taffy and Little Billee. 

The band came in by degrees and tuned their in- 
struments. 



375 



Eyes were constantly being turned to the empty 
box, and people wondered what royal personages 
would appear. 

Monsieur J took his place amid immense ap- 
plause, and bowed in his inimitable way, looking often 
at the empty box. 

Then he tapped and waved his baton, and the band 
played its Hungarian dance music with immense suc- 
cess ; Avhen this was over there was a pause, and soon 
some signs of impatience from the gallery. Monsieur 
J had disappeared. 

Taffy stood up, his back to the orchestra, looking 
round. 

Some one came into the empt}^ box, and stood for 
a moment in front, gazing at the house. A tall 
man, deathly pale, with long black hair and a beard. 

It was Svengali. 

He caught sight 
of Taffy and met 
his eyes, and Taffy 
said r " Good God ! 
Look! look!" 

Then Little Bil- 
lee and the Laird 
got up and looked. 

And Svengali for 
a moment glared at 
them. And the ex- 
pression of his face 
was so terrible with, 
wonder, rage, and 
fear that they were 




'hast thou found me, o mine enemy?" 



376 

quite appalled — and then he sat down, still glaring at 
Taffy, the whites of his eyes showing at tlie top, and 
his teeth bared in a spasmodic grin of hate. 

Then thunders of applause filled the house, and 
turning round and seating themselves, Taffy and Lit- 
tle Billee and the Laird saw Trilby being led by J 

down the platform, between the players, to the front, 
her face smiling rather vacantly, her eyes anxiously 
intent on Svengali in his box. 

She made her bows to right and left just as she had 
done in Paris. 

The band struck up the opening bars of " Ben Bolt," 
with which she was announced to make her debut. 

She still stared — but she didn't sing — and they 
played the little symphony three times. 

One could hear Monsieur J in a hoarse, anxious 

whisper saying, 

" Mais chantez done, madame — pour I'amour de 
Dieu, commencez done — commencez !" 

She turned round with an extraordinary expression 
of face, and said, 

" Chanter ? pourquoi done voulez-vous que je chaute, 
moi ? chanter quoi, alors ?" 

" Mais ' Ben Bolt,' parbleu — chantez !" 

" Ah — 'Ben Bolt!' oui — je connais 9a!" 

Then the band began again. 

And she tried, but failed to begin herself. She 
turned round and said, 

" Comment diable voulez-vous que je chante avec 
tout ce train qu'ils font, ces diables de musiciens !" 

" Mais, mon Dieu, madame — qu'est-ce que vous avez 
done ?" cried Monsieur J . 



378 

"J'ai que j'aime raieux chanter sans toute cette 
satanee musique, parbleu! J'aime mieux chanter 
toute seule !" 

" Sans musique, alors — mais chantez — chantez !" 

The band was stopped — the house was in a state of 
indescribable wonder and suspense. 

She looked all round, and down at herself, and fin- 
gered her dress. Then she looked up to the chande- 
lier with a tender, sentimental smile, and began : 

"Oh, don't you remember sweet Alice, Ben Bolt? 
Sweet Alice with Lair so brown. 
Who wept with delight when you gave her a smile—" 

She had not got further than this when the whole 
house was in an uproar — shouts from the gallery — 
shouts of laughter, hoots, hisses, catcalls, cock-crows. 

She stopped and glared like a brave lioness, and 
called out : 

" Qu'est-ce que vous avez done, tons ! tas de vieilles 
pommes cuites que vous etes ! Est-ce qu'on a peur de 
vous V and then, suddenly : 

"Why, you're all English, aren't you? — what's all 
the row about?— what have you brought me here for? 
— what have / done, I should like to know ?" 

And in asking these questions the depth and splen- 
dor of her voice were so extraordinary — its tone so 
pathetically feminine, yet so full of hurt and indignant 
command, that the tumult was stilled for a moment. 

It was the voice of some being from another world 
— some insulted daughter of a race more puissant and 
nobler than ours ; a voice that seemed as if it could 
never utter a false note. 



379 

Then came a voice from the gods in answer : 

" Oh, ye're Henglish, har yer ? Why don't yer sing 
as yer hought to sing — yer've got voice enough, any- 
'o\v ! why don't yer sing in tune f " 

" Sing in tune /" cried Trilby. " I didn't want to 
sing at all — I only sang because I was asked to sing — 
that gentleman asked rae — that French gentleman with 
the white waistcoat ! I w^on't sing another note !" 

" Oh, yer won't, won't 3'er ! then let us 'ave our 
money back, or we'll know what for !" 

And again the din broke out, and the uproar was 
frightful. 

Monsieur J screamed out across the theatre: 

" Svengali ! Svengali ! qu'est-ce qu'elle a done, votre 
femme ? . . . Elle est devenue folle !" 

Indeed she had tried to sing " Ben Bolt," but had 
sung it in her old way — as she used to sing it in the 
quartier latin — the most lamentably grotesque per- 
formance ever heard out of a human throat ! 

"Svengali! Svengali!" shrieked poor Monsieur J , 

gesticulating towards the box where Svengali was sit- 
ting, quite impassible, gazing at Monsieur J , and 

smiling a ghastly, sardonic smile, a rictus of hate and 
triumphant revenge — as if he were saying, 

" I've got the laugh of you all, this time!" 

Taffy, the Laird, Little Billee, the whole house, were 
now staring at Svengali, and his wife Avas forgotten. 

She stood vacantly looking at everybody and ever}^- 

thing — the chandelier, Monsieur J , Svengali in his 

box, the people in the stalls, in the gallery — and smil- 
ing as if the noisy scene amused and excited her. 

" Svengali ! Svengali ! Svengali !" 



380 

The whole house took up the cry, clerisivelj. Mon- 
sieur J led Madame Svengali away ; she seemed 

quite passive. That terrible figure of Svengali still 
sat, immovable, watching his wife's retreat— still smil- 
ing his ghastly smile. All eyes were now turned on 
him once more. 

Monsieur J was then seen to enter his box with 

a policeman and two or three other men, one of them 
in evening dress. He quickly drew the curtains to ; 
then, a minute or two after, he reappeared on the plat- 
form, bowing and scraping to the audience, as pale as 
death, and called for silence, the gentleman in even- 
ing dress by his side ; and this person explained that 
a ver}^ dreadful thing had happened — that Monsieur 
Svengali had suddenly died in that box — of apoplexy 
or heart-disease ; that his wife had seen it from her 
place on the stage, and had apparently gone out of 
her senses, which accounted for her extraordinary be- 
havior. 

He added that the money would be returned at the 
doors, and begged the audience to disperse quietly. 

Taffy, Avith his two friends behind him, forced his 
way to a stage door he knew. The Laird had no 
longer any doubts on the score of Trilby's identity 
— this Trilby, at all events ! 

Taffy knocked and thumped till the door was opened, 
and gave his card to tlie man who opened it, stating 
that he and his friends were old friends of Madame 
Svengali, and must see her at once. 

The man tried to slam the door in his face, but 
Taffy pushed through, and shut it on the crowd out- 
side, and insisted on being taken to Monsieur J 



381 

immediately ; and was so authoritative and big, and 
looked such a swell, that the man was cowed, and 
led him. 

They passed an open door, through which they had 
a glimpse of a prostrate form on a table — a man par- 
tially undressed, and some men bending over him, doc- 
tors probably. 

That was the last they saw of Svengali. 

Then they were taken to another door, and Monsieur 

J came out, and Taffy explained who they were, 

and they were admitted. 

La Svengali was there, sitting in an arm-chair by 
the fire, with several of the band standing round ges- 
ticulating, and talking German or Polish or Yiddish. 
Gecko, on his knees, was alternately chafing her hands 
and feet. She seemed quite dazed. 

But at the sight of Taffy she jumped up and rushed 
at him, saying : " Oh, Taffy dear — oh, Taffy ! what's 
it all about ? Where on earth am I ? What an age 
since we met V 

Then she caught sight of the Laird, and kissed him ; 
and then she recognized Little Billee. 

She looked at him for a long while in great surprise, 
and then shook hands with him. 

" How pale you are ! and so changed — you've got 
a mustache! What's the matter? Why are you all 
dressed in black, with white cravats, as if you were 
going to a ball? Where's Svengali ? I should like to 
go home !" 

" Where — what do you call — home, I mean — where 
is it?" asked Taffy. 

" C'est a I'hotel de Normandie, dans le Haymarket. 



383 

On va vous y conduire, raadame !" said Monsieur 
J . 

" Qui — c'est 9a !" said Triiby — " Hotel de Norman- 
die — mais Svengali— ou est-ce qu'il est ?" 

" Helas ! madaine — il est tres malade !" 

" Malade ? Qu' est-ce qu'il a ? How funny you look, 
with your mustache, Little Billee ! dear, dear Little 
Billee! so pale, so very pale! Are you ill too? Oh, 
I hope not ! How glad I am to see you again — you 
can't tell ! though I promised your mother I wouldn't 
— never, never ! Where are we now, dear Little Bil- 
lee?" 

Monsieur J seemed to have lost his head. He 

was constantly running in and out of the room, dis- 
tracted. The bandsmen began to talk and try to ex- 
plain, in incomprehensible French, to Taffy. Gecko 
seemed to have disappeared. It was a bewildering 
business — noises from outside, the tramp and bustle 
and shouts of the departing crowd, people running in 

and out and asking for Monsieur J , policemen, 

firemen, and what not ! 

Then Little Billee, who had been exerting the most 
heroic self-control, suggested that Trilby should come 
to his house in Fitzroy Square, first of all, and be taken 
out of all this — and the idea struck Taffy as a happy 

one — and it was proposed to Monsieur J , who saw 

that our three friends were old friends of Madame 
Svengali's, and people to be trusted ; and he was only 
too glad to be relieved of her, and gave his consent. 

Little Billee and Taffy drove to Fitzroy Square to 
prepare Little Billee's landlady, who was much put 
out at first at having such a novel and unexpected 



384 

charge imposed on her. It was all explained to her 
that it must be so. That Madame Svengali, the great- 
est singer in Europe and an old friend of her tenant's, 
had suddenly gone out of her mind from grief at the 
traffic death of her husband, and that for this night 
at least the unhappy lady must sleep under that roof — 
indeed, in Little Billee's own bed, and that he would 
sleep at a hotel ; and that a nurse would be provided 
at once — it might be only for that one night ; and 
that the lady was as quiet as a lamb, and would prob- 
ably recover her faculties after a night's rest. A doc- 
tor was sent for from close by ; and soon Trilby ap- 
peared, with the Laird, and her appearance and her 
magnificent sables impressed Mrs. Godwin, the land- 
lady — brought her figuratively on her knees. Then 
Tafi'y, the Laird, and Little Billee departed again and 
dispersed — to procure a nurse for the night, to find 
Gecko, to fetch some of Trilby's belongings from the 
Hotel de Normandie, and her maid. 

The maid (the old German Jew^ess and Svengali's 
relative), distracted by the news of her master's death, 
had o-one to the theatre. Gecko was in the hands of 
the police. Things had got to a terrible pass. But 
our three friends did their best, and were up most of 
the night. 

So much for la Svengali's debut in London. 

The present scribe w^as not present on that memo- 
rable occasion, and has written this inadequate and 
most incomplete description partly from hearsay and 
private information, partly from the reports in the 
contemporary newspapers. 

Should any surviving eye-witness of that lamentable 



385 

fiasco read these pages, and see an}^ gross inaccuracy 
in this bald account of it, the P. S. will feel deeply 
obliged to the same for any corrections or additions, 
and these will be duly acted upon and gratefully ac- 
knowledged in all subsequent editions ; which will be 
numerous, no doubt, on account of the great interest 
still felt in "la Svengali," even by those who never 
saw or heard her (and they are many), and also be- 
cause the present scribe is better qualified (by his op- 
portunities) for the compiling of this brief biographical 
sketch than any person now living, with the exception, 
of course, of " Taffy " and " the Laird," to whose kind- 
ness, even more than to his own personal recollections, 
he owes whatever it may contain of serious historical 
value. 

Next morning they all three went to Fitzroy Square. 
Little Billee had slept at Taffy's rooms in Jermyn 
Street. 

Trilby seemed quite pathetically glad to see them 
again. She was dressed simply and plainly — in black ; 
her trunks had been sent from the hotel. 

The hospital nurse was with her ; the doctor 
had just left. He had said that she was suffering 
from some great nervous shock — a pretty safe diag- 
nosis ! 

Her wits had apparently not come back, and she 
seemed in no way to realize her position. 

" Ah ! what it is to see you again, all three ! It 
makes one feel glad to be alive! I've thought of 
many things, but never of this — never ! Three nice 
clean Englishmen, all speaking English — and such dear 

5i5 




" ' THREE NICE CLEAN ENGLISHMEN ' " 



old friends! Ah! j'aime tant §a — c'est le ciel! I 
"wonder I've got a word of English left !" 

Her voice was so soft and sweet and low that these 
ingenuous remarks sounded like a beautiful son«:. 
And she "made the soft eyes" at them all three, one 
after another, in her old way; and the soft eyes 
quickly filled with tears. 

She seemed ill and Aveak and worn out, and insisted 
on keeping the Laird's hand in hers. 

"What's the matter with Svengali? He must be 
dead !" 

They all three looked at each other, perplexed. 



387 

" Ah ! he's dead ! I can see it in your faces. He'd 
got heart-disease. I'm sorry ! oh, very sorry indeed ! 
He was always very kind, poor Svengali !" 

" Yes. He's dead," said Taffy. 

"And Gecko — dear little Gecko — is he dead too? 
I saw him last night — he warmed my hands and feet : 
where were we ?" 

" No. Gecko's not dead. But he's had to be locked 
up for a little while. He struck Svengali, you know. 
You saw it all." 

" I ? 'No ! I never saw it. But I dreamt some- 
thing like it ! Gecko with a knife, and people holding 
him, and Svengali bleeding on the ground. That was 
just before Svengali's illness. He'd cut himself in the 
neck, you know — with a rusty nail, he told me. I 
wonder how ! . . . But it was wrong of Gecko to strike 
him. They were such friends. Why did he ?" 

" Well — it was because Svengali struck you with his 
conductor's wand when you were rehearsing. Struck 
you on the lingers and made you cry! don't you re- 
member ?" 

" Struck 7ne ! rehearsing f — made me cry ! what are 
you talking about, dear Taffy % Svengali never struck 
me ! he was kindness itself ! always ! and what should 
/ rehearse ?" 

" Well, the songs you were to sing at the theatre in 
the evening." 

" Sing at the theatre ! / never sang at any theatre 
— except last night, if that big place was a theatre ! 
and they didn't seem to like it ! I'll take precious 
good care ne'ver to sing in a theatre again ! How 
they howled ! and there was Svengali in the box op- 



388 

posite, laughing at me. Why was I taken there ? and 
why did that funny httle Frenchman in the white 
waistcoat ask me to sing? I know very well I can't 
sing well enough to sing in a place like that ! What 
a fool I was ! It all seems like a bad dream ! What 
was it all about ? Was it a dream, I wonder !" 

" Well — but don't you remember singing at Paris, 
in the Salle des Bashibazoucks — and at Vienna — St. 
Petersburg — lots of places ?" 

"What nonsense, dear — you're thinking of some 
one else! /never sang anywhere! Pve been to 
Vienna and St. Petersburg — but I never sang there — 
good heavens !" 

Then there was a pause, and our three friends 
looked at her helplessly. 

Little Billee said: "Tell me. Trilby — what made 
you cut me dead when I bowed to you in the Place 
de la Concorde, and you were riding with Svengali in 
that swell carriage ?" 

" / never rode in a swell carriage with Svengali ! 
omnibuses were more in our line ! You're dreaming, 
dear Little Billee — you're taking me for somebody 
else ; and as for my cutting yoic — why, I'd sooner cut 
myself — into little pieces !" 

" Where were you staying with Svengali in Paris?" 

" I really forget. Were we in Paris. Oh yes, of 
course. Hotel Bertrand, Place Notre Dame des Vic- 
toires." 

" How long have you been going about with Sven- 
gali?" 

" Oh, months, years — I forget. I was very ill. He 
cured me." 



389 



". Ill ! What was the matter ?" 

" Oh ! I was mad with grief, and pain in my eyes, 
and wanted to kill myself, when I lost my dear little 
Jeannot, at Vibraye. 

I fancied I hadn't been a/z^ .^>^/■--Uk,^ >.y^— "^/^ ':>^'XlJ^y^y 
careful enough with 
him. I was crazed ! 
Don't you remember 
writing to me there, 
Taff}' — through An- 
gele Boisse ? Such a 
sweet letter you wrote ! 
I know it by heart 1 
And 3^ou too, Sandy"; 
and she kissed him. 
" I wonder where they 
are, your letters ? — 
I've got nothing of my 
own in the world — not 
even your dear letters 
— nor little Billee's — 
such lots of them ! 

" Well, Svengali used 
to write to me too^ — 
and then he got my ad- 
dress from Angele. . . . 

" When Jeannot died, I felt I must kill myself or 
get away from Vibraye — get away from the people 
there — so when he was buried I cut my hair short and 
got a workman's cap and blouse and trousers and 
walked all the way to Paris without saying anything 
to anybody. I didn't vrant anybody to know ; I 




" P(ENA PEDE CLAUDO " 



390 

wanted to escape from Svengali, who wrote that" he 
was coming there to fetch me. I wanted to hide in 
Paris. When I got there at last it was two o'clock 
in the morning, and I was in dreadful pain — and I'd 
lost all my money — thirty francs — through a hole in 
my trousers -pocket. Besides, I had a row with a 
carter in the Halle. He thought I was a man, and hit 
me and gave me a black eye, just because I patted his 
horse and fed it with a carrot I'd been trying to eat 
myself. He was tipsj^, I think. Well, I looked over 
the bridge at the river — just by the Morgue — and 
wanted to jump in. But the Morgue sickened me, so 
I hadn't the pluck. Svengali used to be always talk- 
ing about the Morgue, and my going there some day. 
He used to say he'd come and look at me there, and 
the idea made me so sick I couldn't. I got bewildered, 
and quite stupid. 

" Then I went to Angele's, in the Rue des Cloitres 
Ste, Petronille, and waited about ; but I hadn't the 
courage to ring, so I went to the Place St. Anatole 
des Arts, and looked up at the old studio window, and 
thought how comfortable it was in there, Avith the big 
settee near the stove, and all that, and felt inclined to 
ring up Madame Vinard ; and then I remembered 
Little Billee was ill there, and liis mother and sister 
were with him. Angele had written me, you know. 
Poor Little Billee ! There he was, very ill ! 

" So I walked about the place, and up and down the 
Rue des Mauvais Ladres. Then I went down the Rue 
de Seine to the river again, and again I hadn't the 
pluck to jump in. Besides, there was a sergent de 
ville who followed and watched me. And the fun of 



391 



it was that I knew hiin quite well, and he didn't know 
me a bit. It was Celestin Beaumollet, who got so 
tipsy on Christmas night. Don't you remember ? The 
tall one, who was pitted with the small-pox. 

" Then I walked about till near daylight. Then 
I could stand it no longer, and went to Svengali's, in 
the Eue Tireliard, but he'd moved to the Eue des 
Saints Peres; and 
I went there and 
found him. I didn't 
want to a bit, but I 
couldn't help myself. 
It was fate, I sup- 
pose ! He was very 
kind, and cured me 
almost directly, and 
got me coffee and 
bread - and - butter — 
the best I ever tasted 
— and a warm bath 
from Bidet Freres, in 
the Rue Savonarole. 
It was heavenly ! 
And I slept for two 
day s a n d t w o n igh ts ! 
And then he told me 
how fond he was of 
me, and how he 
would always cure 
me, and take care of 
me, and marry me, 
if I would go away "the old studio" 




392 

with him. He said he Avould devote his whole life to 
me, and took a small room for me, next to his. 

" I stayed with him there a w^eek, never going out or 
seeing any one, mostly asleep. I'd caught a chill. 

" He played in two concerts and made a lot of 
money ; and then we went away to Germany to- 
gether; and no one was a bit the wiser." 

" And did he marry you ?" 

"Well — no. He couldn't, poor fellow! He'd al- 
ready got a wife living; and three children, which he 
declared were not his. They live in Elberfeld in 
Prussia ; she keeps a small sweet-stuff shop there. He 
behaved very badly to them. But it was not through 
me ! He'd deserted them long before ; but he used to 
send them plenty of money when he'd got any ; I 
made him, for I was very sorry for her. He was al- 
ways talking about her, and what she said and what 
she did ; and imitating her saying her prayers and 
eating pickled cucumber with one hand and drinking 
schnapps with the other, so as not to lose any time ; 
till he made me die of laughing. He could be very 
funny, Svengali, though he was German, poor dear! 
And then Gecko joined us, and Marta." 

"Who's Marta?" 

" His aunt. She cooked for us, and all that. She's 
coming here presently ; she sent word from the hotel ; 
she's very fond of him. Poor Marta ! Poor Gecko ! 
What will they ever do without Svengali ?" 

" Then what did he do to live V 

" Oh ! he played at concerts, I suppose — and all 
that." 

" Did vou ever hear him ?" 



393 

" Yes. Sometimes Marta took me ; at the begin- 
ning, you know. He was alwa3^s very much ap- 
pkxuded. He plays beautifully. Everybody said so." 

" Did he never try and teach you to sing ?" 

" Oh, maie, aie ! not he ! Why, he always laughed 
when I tried to sing; and so did Marta; and so did 
Gecko! It made them roar! I used to sing ' Ben 
Bolt.' They used to make me, just for fun — and go 
into fits, /didn't mind a scrap. I'd had no training, 
you know !" 

"Was there anybody else he knew — any other 
woman V 

"Not that 1 know of! He always made out he 
w^as so fond of me that he couldn't even look at an- 
other woman. Poor Svengali I" (Here her eyes filled 
with tears again.) " He was always very kind ! But 
I never could be fond of him in the way he wished — 
never ! It made me sick even to think of ! Once I 
used to hate him — in Paris — in the studio ; don't you 
remember \ 

" He hardl}^ ever left me ; and then Marta looked 
after me — for I've always been weak and ill — and 
often so languid that I could hardly walk across the 
room. It was that walk from Yibraye to Paris. I 
never got over it. 

" I used to try and do all I could — be a daughter to 
him, as I couldn't be anything else — mend his things, 
and all that, and cook him little French dishes. I 
fancy he was very poor at one time ; we were always 
moving from place to place. But I always had the 
best of everything. He insisted on that — even if he 
had to go without himself. It made him quite un- 



394 

happy when I wouldn't eat, so I used to force my- 
self. 

" Then, as soon as I felt uneasy about things, or 
had any pain, he would say, ' Dors, ma mignonne !' 
and I would sleep at once — for hours, I think — and 
wake up, oh, so tired ! and find him kneeling by me, 
always so anxious and kind — and Marta and Gecko ! 
and sometimes we had the doctor, and I was ill in 
bed. 

" Gecko used to dine and breakfast with us — you've 
no idea what an angel he is, poor little Gecko ! But 
what a dreadful thing to strike Svengali ! Why did 
he? Svengali taught him all he knows!" 

"And you knew no one else — no other woman?" 

"No one that I can remember — except Marta — not 
a soul !" 

" And that beautiful dress you had on last night ?" 

"It isn't mine. It's on the bed up-stairs, and so's 
the fur cloak. They belong to Marta. She's got lots 
of them, lovely things — silk, satin, velvet — and lots 
of beautiful jewels. Marta deals in them, and makes 
lots of money. 

" I've often tried them on ; I'm very easy to fit," 
she said, " being so tall and thin. And poor Svengali 
would kneel down and cry, and kiss my hands and 
feet, and tell me I was his goddess and empress, and 
all that, which I hate. And Marta used to cry, too. 
And then he would say, 

" 'Et maintenant dors, ma mignonne !' 

" And when I woke up I was so tired that I went to 
sleep again on my own account. 

" But he Avas very patient. Oh, dear me ! I've al- 



ways been a poor, helpless, useless log and burden to 
him! 

" Once I actually walked in my sleep — and woke up 
in the market-place at Prague — and found an immense 
crowd, and poor Svengali bleeding from the forehead, 
in a faint on the ground. He'd been knocked down 
by a horse and cart, he told me. He'd got his guitar 
with him. I suppose he and G-ecko had been playing 
somewhere, for Gecko had his fiddle. If Gecko hadn't 
been there, I don't know what we should have done. 
You never saw such queer people as the}" were — such 
crowds — you'd think they'd never seen an English- 
woman before. The noise they made, and the things 
they gave me . . . some of them went down on their 
knees, and kissed my hands and the skirts of my gown. 

" He was ill in bed for a week after that, and I 
nursed him, and he was very grateful. Poor Svengali ! 
God knows / felt grateful to him for manj^ things ! 
Tell me how he died ! I hope he hadn't much pain." 

They told her it was quite sudden, from heart-dis- 
ease. 

" Ah ! I knew he had that ; he wasn't a healthy 
man ; he used to smoke too much. Marta used always 
to be very anxious." 

Just then Marta came in. 

Marta was a fat, elderly Jewess of rather a grotesque 
and ignoble type. She seemed overcome with grief — 
all but prostrate. 

Trilby hugged and kissed her, and took off her bon- 
net and shawl, and made her sit down in a big arm- 
chair, and got her a footstool. 

She couldn't speak a word of anything but Polish 



397 

and a little German. Trilby had also picked np a little 
German, and with this and by means of signs, and no 
doubt through a long intimacy with each other's ways, 
they understood each other very well. She seemed a 
very good old creature, and very fond of Trilby, but 
in mortal terror of the three Englishmen. 

Lunch was brought up for the two women and the 
nurse, and our friend^s left them, promising to come 
again that day. 

They were utterly bewildered ; and the Laird would 
have it that there was another Madame Svengali some- 
where, the real one, and that Trilby was a fraud^self- 
deceived and self-deceiving — quite unconsciously so, of 
course. 

Truth looked out of her eyes, as it always had done 
— truth was in every line of her face. 

The truth only — nothing but the truth could ever 
be told in that "voice of velvet," which rang as true 
when she spoke as that of any thrush or nightingale, 
however rebellious it might be now (and forever per- 
haps) to artificial melodic laws and limitations and re- 
straints. The long training it had been subjected to 
had made it " a wonder, a world's delight," and though 
she might never sing another note, her mere speech 
would always be more golden than any silence, what- 
ever she might say. 

Except on the one particular point of her singing, 
she had seemed absolutely sane — so, at least, thought 
Ta£fy. the Laird, and Little Billee. And each thought 
to himself, besides, that this last incarnation of Trilby- 
ness was quite the sweetest, most touching, most en- 
dearing of all. 



398 

They had not failed to note how rapidly she had 
aged, now that they had seen her without her rouge 
and pearl-powder ; she looked thirty at least — she was 
only twenty-three. 

Her hands were almost transparent in their waxen 
whiteness ; delicate little frosty wrinkles had gathered 
round her eyes ; there were gray streaks in her hair ; 
all strength and straightness and elasticity seemed to 
have gone out of her with the memory of her endless 
triumphs (if she really was la Svengali), and of her 
many wanderings from city to city all over i^urope. 

It was evident enough that the sudden stroke which 
had destroyed her power of singing had left her phys- 
ically a wreck. 

But she was one of those rarely gifted beings who 
cannot look or speak or even stir without waking up 
(and satisfying) some vague longing that lies dormant 
in the hearts of most of us, men and women alike ; 
grace, charm, magnetism — whatever the nameless se- 
duction should be called that she possessed to such an 
unusual degree — she had lost none of it when she lost 
her high spirits, her buoyant health and energy, her 
wits! 

Tuneless and insane, she was more of a siren than 
ever — a quite unconscious siren — without any guile, 
who appealed to the heart all the more directly and 
irresistibly that she could no longer stir the passions. 

All this was keenly felt by all three — each in his 
different way — by Taffy and Little Billee especially. 

All her past life was forgiven — her sins of omission 
and commission ! And whatever might be her fate — 
recovery, madness, disease, or death — the care of her 



399 

till she died or recovered should be the principal busi- 
ness of their lives. 

Both had loved her. All three, perhaps. One had 
been loved by her as passionately, as purely, as un- 
selfishly as any man could wish to be loved, and in 
some extraordinary manner had recovered, after many 
years, at the mere sudden sight and sound of her, his 
lost share in our common inheritance — the power to 
love, and all its joy and sorrow ; without which he 
had found life not worth living, though he had pos- 
sessed every other gift and blessing in such abundance. 

" Oh, Circe, poor Circe, dear Circe, divine enchant- 
ress that you were !" he said to himself, in his excit- 
able w^ay. " A mere look from your eyes, a mere note 
of your heavenly voice, has turned a poor, miserable, 
callous brute back into a man again! and I will never 
forget it — never ! And now that a still worse trouble 
than mine has befallen you, you shall always be first 
in my thoughts till the end !" 

And Taffy felt pretty much the same, though he 
was not by way of talking to himself so eloquent 
about things as Little Billee. 

As they lunched, they read the accounts of the pre- 
vious evening's events in different papers, three or four 
of which (including the Times) had already got lead- 
ers about the famous but unhappy singer who had 
been so suddenly widowed and struck down in the 
midst of her glory. All these accounts were more or 
less correct. In one paper it was mentioned that Ma- 
dame Svengali Was under the roof and care of Mr. 
William Bagot, the painter, in Fitzroy Square. 



400 

The inquest on Svengali was to take place that after- 
noon, and also Gecko's examination at the Bow Street 
Police Court, for his assault. 

Taffy was allowed to see Gecko, who was remanded 
till the result of the post-mortem should be made pub- 




' TAFFY WAS ALLOWED TO SKE GECKO 



lie. But beyond inquiring most anxiously and mi- 
nutely after Trilby, and betraying the 'most passionate 
concern for her, he would say nothing, and seemed in- 
different as to his own fate. 

When they went to Fitzroy Square, late in the after- 



*401 

noon, they found that many people, musical, literary, 
fashionable, and otherwise (and many foreigners), had 
called to inquire after Madame Svengali, but no one 
had been admitted to see her. Mrs. Godwin was much 
elated by the importance of her new lodger. 

Trilby had been writing to Ang^le Boisse, at her 
old address in the Rue des Cloitres Ste. Petronille, in 
the hope that this letter would find her still there. 
She was anxious to go back and be a Uanchisseuse de 
Jin with her friend. It was a kind of nostalgia for 
Paris, the quartier latin, her clean old trade. 

This project our three heroes did not think it nec- 
essary to discuss with her just yet ; she seemed quite 
unfit for work of any kind. 

The doctor, who had seen her again, had been puz- 
zled by her strange physical weakness, and wished for 
a consultation with some special authority ; Little Bil- 
lee, who was intimate with most of the great physi- 
cians, wrote about her to Sir Oliver Calthorpe. 

She seemed to find a deep happiness in being with 
her three old friends, and talked and listened with all 
her old eagerness and geniality, and much of her old 
gayety, in spite of her strange and sorrowful position. 
But for this it was impossible to realize that her brain 
was affected in the slightest degree, except when some 
reference was made to her singing, and this seemed to 
annoy and irritate her, as though she w^ere being made 
fun of. The whole of her marvellous musical career, 
and everything connected with it, had been clean 
wiped out of her recollection. 

She was very anxious to get into other quarters, 

that Little Billee should suffer no inconvenience, and 
26 



402* 

they promised to take rooms for her and Marta on the 
morrow. 

They told her cautiously all about Svengali and 
Gecko ; she was deeply concerned, but betrayed no 
such poignant anguish as might have been expected. 
The thought of Gecko troubled her most, and she 
showed much anxiet}'^ as to Avhat might befall him. 

Next day she moved with Marta to some lodgings 
in Charlotte Street, where everything was made as 
comfortable for them as possible. 

Sir Oliver saw her with Dr. Thorne (the doctor who 
was attending her) and Sir Jacob Wilcox. 

Sir Oliver took the greatest interest in her case, both 
for her sake and his friend Little Billee's. Also his 
own, for he was charmed with her. He saw her three 
times in the course of the week, but could not say for 
certain what was the matter with her, beyond taking 
the very gravest view of her condition. For all he 
could advise or prescribe, her weakness and physical 
prostration increased rapidly, through no cause he 
could discover. Her insanity was not enough to ac- 
count for it. She lost weight daily; she seemed to be 
wasting and fading away from sheer general atrophy. 

Two or three times he took her and Marta for a 
driv^e. 

On one of these occasions, as they went clown Char- 
lotte Street, she saw a shop with transparent French 
blinds in the window, and through them some French 
women, with neat white caps, ironing. It Avas a French 
hlanchisserie defin, and the sight of it interested and 
excited her so much that she must needs insist on be- 
ing put down and on going into it. 



403 



" Je voudrais bien parler a la patronne, si 9a ne la 
derange pas," she said. 

The patronne, a genial Parisian, was much aston- 
ished to hear a great French lady, in costly garments, 




A FAIR BLANCHISSEUSE DE FIN 



evidently a person of fashion and importance, apply- 
ing to her rather humbly for employment in the busi- 
ness, and showing a thorough knowledge of the work 
(and of the Parisian work - woman's colloquial dia- 
lect). Marta managed to catch the patronne's eye, and 



404 

tapped her own forehead significantly, and Sir Oliver 
nodded. So the good woman humored the great lady's 
fancy, and promised her abundance of employment 
whenever she should want it. 

Employment ! Poor Trilby was hardly strong 
enough to walk back to the carriage; and this was 
her last outing. 

But this little adventure had filled her with hope 
and good spirits — for she had as yet received no an- 
swer from Angcle Boisse (who was in Marseilles), and 
had begun to realize how dreary the quartier latin 
would be without Jeannot, without Angele, without 
the trois Angliches in the Place St. Anatole des Arts. 

She was not allowed to see any of the strangers who 
came and made kind inquiries. This her doctors had 
strictly forbidden. Any reference to music or singing 
irritated her beyond measure. She would say to Marta, 
in bad German : 

" Tell them, Marta — what nonsense it is ! They are 
taking me for another — they are mad. They are try- 
ing: to make a fool of me !" 

And Marta would betray great uneasiness — almost 
terror — when she was appealed to in this way. 



Ipart JEiabtb 

"La vie est vaine: 
Un peu d'amour, 
Un peu de liaine. . . . 
Et puis — bonjour! 

"La vie est breve: 
Uu peu d'espoir, 
Un peu de reve. . . . 
Et puis — bonsoir." 

SvENGALi had died from heart-disease. The cut he 
had received from Gecko had not apparently (as far as 
the verdict of a coroner's inquest could be trusted) had 
any effect in aggravating his malady or hastening his 
death. 

But Gecko was sent for trial at the Old Bailey, and 
sentenced to hard labor for six months (a sentence 
which, if I remember aright, gave rise to much com- 
ment at the time). Taffy saw him again, but with no 
better result than before. He chose to preserve an 
obstinate silence on his relations with the Svenffalis 
and their relations with each other. 

When he was told how hopelessly ill and insane 
Madame Svengali was, he shed a few tears, and said : 
" Ah, pauvrette, pauvrette — ah ! monsieur — je I'aimais 
tant, je I'aimais tant ! il n'y en a pas beaucoup comme 
elle, Dieu de misere! C'est un ange du Paradis !" 

And not another word was to be got out of him. 



406 

It took some time to settle Svengali's affairs after 
his death. No will was found. His old mother came 
over from Germany, and two of his sisters, but no 
wife. The comic wife and the three children, and the 
sweet-stuff shop in Eloerfeld, had been humorous in- 
ventions of his own— a hind of Mrs. Harris! 

Pie left three thousand pounds, every penny of 
which (and of far larger sums that he had spent) had 
baen earned by "la SvengaJi," but nothing came to 
Trilby of this; nothing but the clothes and jewels he 
had given her, and in this respect he had been lavish 
enough ; and there were countless costly gifts from 
emperors, kings, great people of all kinds. Trilby 
was under the impression that all these belonged to 
Marta. Marta behaved admirabl}^ ; she seemed bound 
hand and foot to Trilby by a kind of slavish adora- 
tion, as that of a plain old mother for a brilliant and 
beautiful but dying child. 

It soon became evident that, whatever her disease 
might be, Trilby had but a very short time to live. 

She was soon too weak even to be taken out in a 
Bath-chair, and remained all day in her large sitting- 
room with Marta ; and there, to her great and only 
joy, she received her three old friends every after- 
noon, and gave them coffee, and made them smoke 
cigarettes of caporal as of old ; and their hearts were 
daily harrowed as they watched her rapid decline. 

Day by day she grew more beautiful in their eyes, 
in spite of her increasing pallor and emaciation — her 
skin was so pure and white and delicate, and the bones 
of her face so admirable ! 

Her eyes recovered all their old humorous bright- 



408 

ness when les trois Angliches were with her, and the 
expression of her face was so wistful and tender for 
all her playfulness, so full of eager clinging to exist- 
ence and to them, that tliey felt the memory of it 
would haunt them forever, and be the sweetest and 
saddest memory of their lives. 

Her quick, though feeble gestures, full of reminis- 
cences of the vigorous and lively girl they had known 
a few years back, sent waves of pity through them 
and pure brotherly love ; and the incomparable tones 
and changes and modulations of her voice, as she chat- 
ted and laughed, bewitched tliem almost as much as 
when she had sung the " Nussbaum " of Schumann in 
the Salle des Bashibazoucks. 

Sometimes Lorrimer came, and Antony and the 
Greek. It was like a genial little court of bohemia. 
And Lorrimer, Antony, the Laird, and Little Billee 
made those beautiful clialk and pencil studies of her 
head which are now so well known — all so singularly 
like her, and so singularly unlike each other ! Trilby 
mied travers quatre temperaments! 

These afternoons were probably the happiest poor 
Trilby had ever spent in her life — with these dear 
people round her, speaking the language she loved ; 
talking of old times and jolly Paris days, she never 
thought of the morrow. 

But later — at night, in the small hours — she would 
wake up with a start from some dream full of tender 
and blissful recollection, and suddenly realize her own 
mischance, and feel the icy hand of that which was to 
come before many morrows were over ; and taste the 
bitterness of death so keenly that she longed to scream 



409 

out loud, and get up, and walk up and down, and 
wring her hands at the dreadful thought of parting 
forever ! 

But she lay motionless and mum as a poor little 
frightened mouse in a trap, for fear of waking up the 
good old tired Marta, who was snoring at her side. 

And in an hour or two the bitterness would pass 
away, the creeps and the horrors; and the stoical 
spirit of resignation would steal over her — the balm, 
the blessed calm ! and all her old bravery would come 
back. 

And then she would sink into sleep again, and 
dream more blissfully than ever, till the good Marta 
woke her with a motherly kiss and a fragrant cup of 
cotfee ; and she would find, feeble as she was, and 
doomed as she felt herself to be, that joy cometh of a 
morning ; and life was still sweet for her, with yet a 
whole day to look forward to. 

One day she was deeply moved at receiving a visit 
from Mrs. Bagot, who, at Little Billee's earnest desire, 
had come all the way from Devonshire to see her. 

As the graceful little lady came in, pale and trem- 
bling all over, Trilby rose from her chair to receive 
her, and rather timidly put out her hand, and smiled 
in a frightened manner. Neither could speak for a 
second. Mrs. Bagot stood stock-still by the door gaz- 
ing (with all her heart in her eyes) at the so terribly 
altered Trilby — the girl she had once so dreaded. 

Trilby, who seemed also bereft of motion, and 
whose face and lips were ashen, exclaimed, -' I'm afraid 
I haven't quite kept my promise to you, after all ! but 



410 



things have turned out so differently ! anyhow, you 
needn't have any fear of me now.'''' 

At the mere sound of that voice, Mrs. Bagot, who 
was as impulsive, emotional, and unregulated as her 



40 Y^^ ^.^^'^ ^.■" f'^^'^t^ii 




" ' OH, MY POOR GIRL ! MY POOR GIRL !' " 



son, rushed forward, crying, " Oh, my poor girl, my 
poor girl !" and caught her in her arms, and kissed 
and caressed her, and burst into a flood of tears, and 
forced her back into her chair, hugging her as if she 
were a long-lost child. 

" I love you now as much as I always admired you 
— pray believe it !" 



411 

" Oh, how kind of you to say that !" said Trilby, her 
own eyes filling. "I'm not at all the dangerous or 
designing person you thought. I knew quite well I 
wasn't a jDroper person to marry your son all the time ; 
and told him so again and again. It was very stupid 
of me to say yes at last. I was miserable directly 
after, I assure you. Somehow I couldn't help myself 
— I was driven." 

" Oh, don't talk of that ! don't talk of that ! You've 
never been to blame in any way — I've long known 
it — I've been full of remorse! You've been in my 
thoughts alwaj's, night and day. Forgive a poor jeal- 
ous mother. As if any man could help loving you — 
or any woman either. Forgive me !" 

"■ Oh, Mrs. Bagot — forgive you I What a funny 
idea! But, anyhow, you'v^e forgiven me, and that's all 
I care for now. I was very fond of your son — as fond 
as could be. I am now, but in quite a different sort 
of way, you know — the sort of way you must be, I 
fancy ! There was never another like him that I ever 
met — anywhere ! You must be so proud of him; who 
wouldn't? Nobody's good enough for him. I would 
have been only too glad to be his servant, his humble 
servant ! I used to tell him so — but he wouldn't hear 
of it — he was much too kind ! He always thought of 
others before himself. And, oh ! how rich and famous 
he's become! I've heard all about it, and it did me 
good. It does me more good to think of than any- 
thing else ; far more than if I were to be ever so rich 
and famous myself, I can tell you !" 

This from la Svengali, whose overpowering fame, so 
utterly forgotten by herself, was still ringing all over 



413 

Europe; whose lamentable illness and approaching 
death were being mourned and discussed and com- 
mented upon in every capital of the civilized world, as 
one distressing bulletin appeared after another. She 
might have been a roj^al personage ! 

Mrs. Bagot knew, of course, the strange form her 
insanity had taken, and made no allusion to the flood 
of thoughts that rushed through lier own brain as she 
listened to this towering goddess of song, this poor 
mad queen of the nightingales, humbly gloating ov^er 
her son's success. . . . 

Poor Mrs. Bagot had just come from Little Billee's, 
in Fitzroy Square, close by. There she had seen Taffy, 
in a corner of Little Billee's studio, laboriously an- 
swering endless letters and telegrams from all parts 
of Europe — for the good Taffy had constituted him- 
self Trilby's secretary and homme d'affaires — unknown 
to her, of course. And this was no sinecure (though 
he liked it) : putting aside the numerous people he 
had to see and be interviewed hj^ there were kind 
inquiries and messages of condolence and sympath}'- 
from nearl}' all the crowned heads of Europe, through 
their chamberlains; applications for help from unsuc- 
cessful musical stragglers all over the world to the pre- 
eminently successful one; beautiful letters from great 
and famous people, musical or otherwise ; disinterested 
offers of service ; interested proposals for engagements 
when the present trouble should be over ; beggings for 
an interview from famous impresarios, to obtain which 
no distance would be thought too great, etc., etc., etc. 
It was endless, in English, French, German, Italian— 
in languages quite incomprehensible (many letters had 



413 

to remain unanswered) — Taffy took an almost ma- 
licious pleasure in explaining all this to Mrs. Bagot. 

Then there Wi|S a constant rolling of carriages up 
to the door, and a thundering of Little Billee's knocker: 
Lord and Lady Palmerston wish to know — the Lord 
Chief Justice wishes to know — the Dean of Westmin- 
ster wishes to know — the Marchioness of Westminster 
wishes to know — everybody wishes to know if there is 
any better nevvs of Madame Svengali ! 

These were small things, truly ; but Mrs. Bagot was 
a small person from a small village in Devonshire, and 
one whose heart and eye had hitherto been filled by 
no larger image than that of Little Billee; and Little 
Billee's fame, as she now discovered for the first time, 
did not quite fill the entire universe. 

And she mustn't be too much blamed if all these 
obvious signs of a world-wide colossal celebrity im- 
pressed and even awed her a little. 

Madame Svengali ! Why, this was the beautiful 
girl whom she remembered so well, whom she had so 
grandly discarded with a word, and who had accepted 
her conge so meekly in a minute ; whom, indeed, she 
had been cursing in her heart for years, because — be- 
cause what ? 

Poor Mrs. Bagot felt herself turn hot and red all 
over, and humbled herself to the very dust, and al- 
most forgot that she had been in the right, after all, 
and that " la grande Trilb}^ " was certainly no fit 
match for her son ! 

So she went quite humbly to see Trilby, and found 
a poor, pathetic, mad creature still more humble than 
herself, who still apologized for — for what ? 



414 

A poor, pathetic, mad creature who had clean for- 
gotten that she was the greatest singer in all the 
world — one of the greatest artists that had ever lived ; 
but who remembered with shame and contrition that 
she had once taken the liberty of yielding (after end- 
less pressure and repeated disinterested refusals of her 
own, and out of sheer irresistible affection) to the pas- 
sionate pleadings of a little obscure art student, a 
mere boy — no better off than herself — just as penni- 
less and insignificant a nobody ; but — the son of Mrs. 
Bagot. 

All due sense of proportion died out of the poor 
lady as she remembered and realized all this ! 

And then Trilby's pathetic beauty, so touching, so 
winning, in its rapid decay; the nameless charm of 
look and voice and manner that was her special apa- 
nage, and which her malady and singular madness 
had only increased; her childlike simplicity, her trans- 
parent forgetfulness of self — all these so fascinated 
and entranced Mrs. Bagot, whose quick susceptibility 
to such impressions was just as keen as her son's, that 
she very soon found herself all but worshipping this 
fast-fading lily — for so she called her in her own 
mind — quite forgetting (or affecting to forget) on 
what very questionable soil the lily had been reared, 
and through what strange vicissitudes of evil and cor- 
ruption it had managed to grow so tall and white and 
fragrant ! 

Oh, strange compelling power of weakness and 
grace and prettiness combined, and sweet, sincere un- 
conscious natural manners! not to speak of world- 
wide fame ! 



415 

For Mrs. Bagot was just a shrewd little conven- 
tional British country matron of the good upper 
middle -class type, bristling all over with provincial 
proprieties and respectabilities, a philistine of the 
philistines, in spite of her artistic instincts ; one who 
for years had (rather unjustly) thought of Trilby as a 
wanton and perilous siren, an unchaste and unprinci- 
pled and most dangerous daughter of Heth, and the 
special enemy of her house. 

And here she was — hke all the rest of us monads 
and nomads and bohemians— just sitting at Trilby's 
feet. ..." A washer- woman ! a figure model ! and 
Heaven know^s what besides!" and she had never even 
heard her sing ! 

It was truly comical to see and hear ! 

Mrs. Bagot did not go back to Devonshire. She re- 
mained in Fitzroy Square, at her son's, and spent most 
of her time with Trilby, doing and devising all kinds 
of things to distract and amuse her, and lead her 
thoughts gently to heaven, and soften for her the com- 
ing end of all. 

Trilby had a way of saying, and especially of look- 
ing, " Thank you" that made one wish to do as many 
things for her as one could, if only to make her say 
and look it again. 

And she had retained much of her old, quaint, and 
amusing manner of telling things, and had much to 
tell still left of her wandering life, although there 
were so many strange lapses in her powers of mem- 
ory — gaps — which, if they could only have been filled 
up, would have been full of such surpassing interest I 



416 



Then she was never tired of talking and hearing 
of Little Billee ; and that was a subject of which Mrs. 
Bagot could never tire either ! 

Then there were the recollections of her childhood. 
One day, in a drawer, Mrs. Bagot came upon a faded 
daguerreotype of a woman in a Tam o' Shanter, with 
a face so sweet and beautiful and saint -like that 

it almost took her 
breath away. It 
was Trilby's mother. 
" Who and what 
was your mother, 
Trilby ?" 

"Ah, poor mam- 
ma !" said Trilby, 
and she looked at 
the portrait a long 
time. "Ah, she 
was ever so much 
prettier than that! 
Mamma was once a 
demoiselle de comp- 
toir — that's a bar- 
maid, you know — 
at the Montagnards 
Ecossais, in the Rue 
du Paradis Poissonniere — a place where men used to 
drink and smoke without sitting down. That was 
unfortunate, wasn't it ? 

"Papa loved her with ail his heart, although, of 
course, she wasn't his equal. They were married at 
the Embassy, in the Rue du Faubourg St. Honore. 




" ' AH, POOR MAMMA ! SHE WAS EVER SO 
MUCH PRETTIER THAN THAT !' " 



417 

'■'■Her parents weren't married at all. Her mother 
was the daughter of a boatman on Loch Ness, near a 
place called Drumnadrockit ; but her father was the 
Honorable Colonel Desmond. He was related to all 
sorts of great people in England and Ireland. He 
behaved very badly to my grandmother and to poor 
mamma — his own daughter! deserted them both! 
Not very honomhle of him, was it? And that's all 
I know about him." 

And then she went on to tell of the home in Paris 
that might have been so happy but for her father's 
passion for drink ; of her parents' deaths, and little 
Jeannot, and so forth. And Mrs. Bagot was much 
moved and interested by these naive revelations, 
which accounted in a measure for so much that 
seemed unaccountable in this extraordinary woman; 
who thus turned out to be a kind of cousin (though 
on the wrong side of the blanket) to no less a person 
than the famous Duchess of Towers. 

With what joy would that ever kind and gracious 
lady have taken poor Trilby to her bosom had she 
only known ! She had once been all the way from 
Paris to Vienna merely to hear her sing. But, un- 
fortunately, the Svengalis had just left for St. Peters- 
burg, and she had her long journey for nothing ! 

Mrs. Bagot brought her many good books, and read 
them to her — Dr. Cummings on the approaching end 
of the world, and other works of a like comforting 
tendency for those who are just about to leave it ; 
the Pilgrini's Progress, sweet little tracts, and what 
not. 

27 



418 

Trilby was so grateful that she listened with much 
patient attention. Only now and then a faint gleam 
of amusement would steal over her face, and her lips 
would almost form themselves to ejaculate, " Oh, maie, 
aie !" 

Then Mrs. Bagot, as a reward for such winning do- 
cility, would read her David Copperfield, and that was 
heavenly indeed ! 

But the best of all was for Trilby to look over John 
Leech's Pictures of Life and Character, just out. 
She had never seen any drawings of Leech before, 
except now and then in an occasional Punch that 
turned up in the studio in Paris. And they never 
palled upon her, and taught her more of the aspect of 
English life (the life she loved) than any book she had 
ever read. She laughed and laughed ; and it was al- 
most as sweet to listen to as if she were vocalizing the 
quick part in Chopin's Impromptu. 

One day she said, her lips trembling : " I can't make 
out why you're so wonderfully kind to me, Mrs. Ba- 
got. I hope you have not forgotten who and what 
I am, and what my story is. I hope you haven't for- 
gotten that I'm not a respectable woman?" 

" Oh, my dear child — don't ask me ... I only knoAV 
that you are you ! . . . and I am I ! and that is enough 
for me . . . you're my poor, gentle, patient, suffering 
daughter, whatever else you are— more sinned against 
than sinning, I feel sure ! But there . . . I've mis- 
judged you so, and been so unjust, that I would give 
worlds to make you some amends . . . besides, I should 
be just as fond of you if 3 ou'd committed a murder, I 



419 

really believe — you're so strange ! you're irresistible ! 
Did you ever, in all your life, meet anybody that 
wasnH fond of you ?" 

Trilby's eyes moistened with tender pleasure at 
such a pretty compliment. Then, after a few min- 
utes' thought, she said, with engaging candor and 
quite simply : "• No, I can't say I ever did, that I 
can think of just now. But I've forgotten such lots 
of people !" 

One day Mrs. Bagot told Trilby that her brother- 
in-law, Mr. Thomas Bagot, would much like to come 
and talk to her. 

" Was that the gentleman who came with you to 
the studio in Paris V 

" Yes." 

" Why, he's a clergyman, isn't he ? What does he 
want to come and talk to me about ?" 

" Ah ! my dear child . . ." said Mrs. Bagot, her eyes 
filling. 

Trilby was thoughtful for a while, and then said : 
" I'm going to die, I suppose. Oh yes ! oh yes ! 
There's no mistake about that !" 

" Dear Trilby, we are all in the hands of an Al- 
mighty Merciful God !" And the tears rolled down 
Mrs. Bagot's cheeks. 

After a long pause, during which she gazed out of 
the window, Trilby said, in an abstracted kind of way, 
as though she were talking to herself: " Apr^s tout, 
c'est pas deja si raide, de claquer ! J'en ai tant vus, 
qui ont passe par la ! Au bout du fosse la culbute, 
ma foi !" 



430 

" What are you saying to yourself in French, Tril- 
by ? Your French is so difficult to understand !" 

"Oh, I beg your pardon! I was thinking it's not 
so difficult to die, after all ! I've seen such lots of peo- 
ple do it. I've nursed them, you know — papa and 
mamma and Jeannot, and Angcle Boisse's mother- 
in-law, and a poor casseur de pierres, Colin Maigret, 
who lived in the Impasse des Taupes St. Germain. 
He'd been run over by an omnibus in the Rue Yau- 
girard, and had to have both his legs cut off just 
above the knee. They none of them seemed to 
mind dying a bit. They weren't a bit afraid! /'m 
not! 

" Poor people don't think much of death. Rich 
people shouldn't either. They should be taught when 
they're quite young to laugh at it and despise it, like 
the Chinese. The Chinese die of laughing just as 
their heads are being cut off, and cheat the execution- 
er ! It's all in the day's work, and we're all in the 
same boat — so who's afraid !" 

" Dying is not all, my poor child ! Are you pre- 
pared to meet your Maker face to face ? Have you 
ever thought about God, and the possible wrath to 
come if you should die unrepentant?" 

" Oh, but I sha'n't ! I've been repenting all my 
life ! Besides, there'll be no wrath for any of us — not 
even the worst ! II y aura amnistle generale ! Papa 
told me so, and he'd been a clergyman, like Mr. 
Thomas Bagot. I often think about God. I'm very 
fond of Him. One mu8t have something perfect 
to look up to and be fond of — even if it's only an 
idea ! 



421 

" Though some people don't even beheve He exists ! 
Le pere Martin didn't — but, of course, he was only a 
chiffonnier, and doesn't count. 

" One day, though, Durien, the sculptor, who's very 
clever, and a very good fellow indeed, said : 

" ' Yois - tu, Trilby — I'm very much afraid He 
doesn't really exist, le bon Dieu ! most unfortunately 
for me^ for I adore Him ! I never do a piece of work 
without thinking how nice it would be if I could only 
please Ilhn with it !' 

" And I've often thought, myself, how heavenly it 
must be to be able to paint, or sculpt, or make music, 
or write beautiful poetry, for that very reason ! 

" Why, once on a very hot afternoon we were sit- 
ting, a lot of us, in the court -yard outside la mure 
Martin's shop, drinking coffee with an old Invalide 
called Bastide Lendormi, one of the Vieille Garde, 
who'd only got one leg and one arm and one eye, and 
everybody was very fond of him. Well, a model 
called Mimi la Salope came out of the Mont-de-pieto 
opposite, and Pere Martin called out to her to come 
and sit down, and gave her a cup of coffee, and asked 
her to sing. 

" She sang a song of Beranger's, about Napoleon 
the Great, in which it says : 

" ' Piirlez-nous de lui, grandmere ! 
Graudinere, parlez nous de lui !' 

I suppose she sang it very well, for it made old Bas- 
tide Lendormi cry ; and when Pere Martin Uague'd 
him about it, he said, 




TO SING LIKE THAT IS TO PRAY 



" ' C'est egal, voyez - vous ! to sing like that is to 
pray P 

"And then I thought how lovely it would be if / 
could only sing like Mimi la Salope, and I've thought 
so ever since — just to pray P'' 

" What ! Trilby ? if you could only sing like — Oh, 
but never mind, I forgot ! Tell me, Trilby — do you 
ever pray to Him, as other people pray ?" 

" Pray to Him ? Well, no — not often — not in words 
and on my knees and with my hands together, you 
know! 7%m^?'w^\<? praying, very often — don't 3^ou 
think so? And so's being sorry and ashamed Avhen 
one's done a mean thing:, and g-lad when one's resisted 
a temptation, and grateful when it's a fine day and 



4.-S6 

one's enjoying one's self without hurting any one else ! 
What is it but praying when you try and bear up 
after losing all you cared to live for ? And very good 
praying too ! There can be prayers without words 
just as well as songs, 1 suppose ; and Svengali used to 
say that songs without words are the best ! 

" And then it seems mean to be always asking for 
things. Besides, you don't get them any the faster 
that way, and that shows ! 

" La mere Martin used to be always praying. And 
Pere Martin used always to laugh at her; yet he al- 
w^ays seemed to get the things he wanted oftenest ! 

"/ prayed once, very hard indeed ! I prayed for 
Jeannot not to die !" 

"Well — but how do you repent, Trilby, if you do 
not humble yourself, and pray for forgiveness on your 
knees ?" 

" Oh, well — I don't exactly know ! Look here, Mrs. 
Bagot, I'll tell you the lowest and meanest thing 1 
ever did. . . ." 

(Mrs. Bagot felt a little nervous.) 

" I'd promised to take Jeannot on Palm-Sunday to 
St. Philippe du Koule, to hear I'abbe Bergamot. But 
Durien (that's the sculptor, you know) asked me to 
go with him to St. Germain, where there was a fair, 
or something ; and with Mathieu, who was a student 
in law ; and a certain Victorine Letellier, who — who 
was Mathieu's mistress, in fact. And I went on Sun- 
day morning to tell Jeannot that I couldn't take him. 

" He criedi so dreadfully that I thought I'd give up 
the others and take him to St. Philippe, as I'd prom- 
ised. But then Durien and Mathieu and Yictorine 



424 

drove up and waited outside, and so I didn't take him, 
and went with them, and I didn't enjoy anything all 
day, and Avas miserable. 

"They were in an open carriage with two horses; 
it was Mathieu's treat ; and Jeannot might have ridden 
on the box by the coachman, without being in any- 
body's way. But I was afraid they didn't want him, 
as they didn't say anything, and so I didn't dare ask — 
and Jeannot saw us drive away, and I couldtiH look 
back ! And the worst of it is that when we were 
half-way to St. Germain, Durien said, ' What a pity 
you didn't bring Jeannot !' and they were all sorry 1 
hadn't. 

" It was six or seven years ago, and I really believe 
I've thought of it almost every day, and sometimes in 
the middle of the night ! 

"Ah ! and when Jeannot was dying! and when he 
was dead — the remembrance of that Palm-Sunday ! 

"And if thafs not repenting, I don't know what is!" 

"Oh, Trilby, what nonsense! that''s nothing; good 
heavens ! — putting off a small child ! I'm thinking of 
far worse things — when you were in the quartier latin, 
you know — sitting to painters and sculptors. . . . Sure- 
ly, so attractive as you are " 

" Oh yes. ... I know what you mean — it was hor- 
rid, and I was frightfully ashamed of myself ; and it 
wasn't amusing a bit; nothing was, till I met your 
son and Taffy and dear Sandy McAlister ! But then 
it wasn't deceiving or disappointing anybody, or hurt- 
ing their feelings — it was only hurting myself ! 

" Besides, all that sort of thing, in women, is pun- 
ished severely enough down here, God knows ! unless 




" ' THE UEMKMBRANCE Of THAT PALM-SUNDAY !' 



one's a Russian empress like Catherine the Great, or a 
grande dame hke lots of them, or a great genius like 
Madame Tlachel or George Sand ! 

" Why, if it hadn't been for that, and sitting for the 
figure, I should have felt myself good enough to mar- 
ry your son, although I was only a blanchisseuse de 
fin — you've said so yourself ! 

" And I should have made -him a good wife — of that 
I feel sure. He wanted to live all his life at Barbizon, 
and paint, you know ; and didn't care for society in the 
least. Anyhow, I should have been equal to such a 



426 

life as that ! Lots of their wives are blanchisseuses 
over there, or people of that sort ; and they get on 
very well indeed, and nobody troubles about it ! 

" So I think I've been pretty well punished — richly 
as I've deserved to !" 

" Trilby, have you ever been confirmed ?" 

" I forget. I fancy not !" 

" Oh dear, oh dear ! And do you know about our 
blessed Saviour, and the Atonement and the Incarna- 
tion and the Resurrection. . ." 

"Oh yes — I used to, at least. I used to have to 
learn the Catechism on Sundays — mamma made me. 
Whatever her faults and mistakes were, poor mamma 
was always ver}'^ particular about that ! It all seemed 
very complicated. But papa told me not to bother 
too much about it, but to be good. He said that God 
would make it all right for us somehow, in the end — 
all of us. And that seems sensible, doesnH it ? 

"He told me to be good, and not to mind what 
priests and clergymen tell us. He'd been a clergy- 
man himself, and knew all about it, he said, 

" I haven't been very good — there's not much doubt 
about that, I'm afraid. But God knows I've repented 
often enough and sore enough ; I do now ! But I'm 
rather glad to die, I think ; and not a bit afraid — not a 
scrap ! I believe in poor papa, though he was so un- 
fortunate ! He was the cleverest man I ever knew, 
and the best — except Taffy and the Laird and your 
dear son ! 

" There'll be no hell for any of us — he told me so — 
except what we make for ourselves and each other 
down here ; and that's bad enough for anything. He 



told me that he was responsible for me — he often said 
so — and that mamma was too, and his parents for 
him, and his grandfathers and grandmothers for them, 
and so on up to Noah and ever so far beyond, and 
God for us all ! 

" He told me always to think of other people before 
myself, as Taffy does, and ^^our son ; and never to tell 
lies or be afraid, and keep away from drink, and I 
should be all right. But I've sometimes been all 
wrong, all the same ; and it wasn't papa's fault, but 
poor mamma's and mine; and I've known it, and 
been miserable at the time, and after! and I'm sure 
to be forgiven — perfectly certain— and so will every- 
body else, even the wickedest that ever lived ! Why, 
just give them sense enough in the next world to 
understand all their wickedness in this, and that'll 
punish them enough for anything, I think! That's 
simple enough, isiiH it ? Besides, there may be no next 
world — that's on the cards too, you know ! — and that 
will be simpler still ! 

"Not all the clergymen in all the world, not even 
the Pope of Rome, will ever make me doubt papa, or 
believe in any punishment after what we've all got to 
go through here ! Ce serait trop htte ! 

"So that if you don't want me to very much, and 
he won't think it unkind, I'd rather not talk to Mr. 
Thomas Bagot about it. I'd rather talk to Taffy if 
I must. He's .verx" clever, Taffy, though he doesn't 
often say such clever things as your son does, or paint 
nearly so well ; and I'm sure he'll think papa was 
right." 

And as a matter of fact the good Taffy, in his opin- 



428 

ion on this solemn subject, was found to be at one 
with the late Eeverend Patrick Michael O'Ferrall — 
and so was the Laird — and so (to his mother's shocked 
and pained surprise) was Little Billee. 

And so were Sir Oliver Calthorpe and Sir Jacob 
Wilcox and Doctor Thorne and Anton}^ and Lorrimer 
and the Greek ! 

And so — in after-years, when grief had well pierced 
and torn and riddled her through and through, and 
time and age had healed the wounds, and nothing re- 
mained but the consciousness of great inward scars of 
recollection to remind her how deep and jagged and 
wide the wounds had once been — did Mrs. Bagot her- 
self! 

Late on one memorable Saturday afternoon, just as 
it was getting dusk in Charlotte Street, Trilby, in her 
pretty blue dressing-gown, lay on the sofa by the fire 
— her head well prop])ed, her knees drawn up— look- 
ing very placid and content. 

She had spent the early part of the day dictating 
her will to the conscientious Taff3^ 

It was a simple document, although she was not 
without many valuable trinkets to leave: quite a fort- 
une! Souvenirs from many men and women she had 
charmed b}^ her singing, from royalties downward. 

She had been looking them over with the faithful 
Marta, to whom she had alwaj^s thought they be- 
longed. It was explained to her that they were gifts 
of Svengali's; since she did not remember when and 
where and by whom they were presented to her, ex- 
cept a few that Svengali had given her himself, with 



439 

many passionate expressions of his love, which seems 
to have been deep and constant and sincere ; none the 
less so, perhaps, that she could never return it ! 

She had left the bulk of these to the faithful Marta. 

But to each of the trois Angliches she had be- 
queathed a beautiful ring, which was to be worn by 
their brides if they ever married, and the brides didn't 
object. 

To Mrs. Bagot she left a pearl necklace; to Miss 
Bagot her gold coronet of stars; and pretty (and most 
costl}^) gifts to each of the three doctors who had at- 
tended her and been so assiduous in their care ; and 
who, as she was told, would make no charge for at- 
tending on Madame Svengali. And studs and scarf- 
pins to Antony, Lorrimer, the Greek, Dodor, and Zou- 
zou ; and to Carnegie a little German-silver vinaigrette 
which had once belongefl to Lord Witlow ; and pretty 
souvenirs to the Vinards, Angele Boisse, Durien, and 
others. 

And she left a magnificent gold watch and chain to 
Gecko, with a most affectionate letter and a hundred 
pounds — which was all she had in money of her own. 

She had taken great interest in discussing with 
Taffy the particular kind of trinket which would best 
suit the idiosyncrasy of each particular legatee, and 
derived great comfort from the business-like and sym- 
pathetic conscientiousness with which the good Taffy 
entered upon all these minutiaB — he was so solemn 
and serious about it, and took such pains. She little 
guessed how his dumb but deeply feeling heart was 
harrowed ! 

This document had been duly signed and witnessed 



430 

and intrusted to his care ; and Trilby lay tranquil and 
happy, and with a sense that nothing remained for her 
but to enjoy the fleeting hour, and make the most of 
each precious moment as it went by. 

She was quite without pain of either mind or body, 
and surrounded by the people she adored — Taffy, the 
Laird, and Little Billee, and Mrs. Bagot, and Marta, 
who sat knitting in a corner with her black mittens 
on, and her brass spectacles. 

She listeiied to the chat and joined in it, laughing 
as usual ; " love in her eyes sat playing," as she looked 
from one to another, for she loved them all beyond 
expression. "Love on her lips was straying, and 
warbling in her breath," whenever she spoke; and 
her weakened voice was still larger, fuller, softer than 
any other voice in the room, in the world — of another 
kind, from another sphere. 

A cart drove up, there Avas a ring at the door, and 
presently a wooden packing-case was brought into the 
room. 

At Trilby's request it was opened, and found to con- 
tain a large photograph, framed and glazed, of Sven- 
gali, in the militar}'^ uniform of his own Hungarian 
band, and looking straight out of the picture, straight 
at you. He was standing by his desk with his left 
hand turning over a leaf of music, and waving his 
baton with his right. It was a splendid photograph, 
by a Viennese photographer, and a most speaking 
likeness ; and Svengali looked truly fine — all made up 
of importance and authority, and his big black eyes 
were full of stern command. 

Marta trembled as she looked. It was handed to 



433 



Trilby, who exclaimed in surprise. She had never 
seen it. She had no photograph of him, and had 
never possessed one. 

No message of any kind, no letter of explanation, 
accompanied this unexpected present, which, from the 
postmarks on the case, seemed to have travelled all 

over Europe to London, 
out of some remote prov- 
ince in eastern Russia — 
out of the mysterious East ! 
The poisonous East — birth- 
place and home of an ill 
wind that blows nobody 
good. 

Trilby laid it against her 
legs as on a lectern, and 
lay gazing at it with close 
attention for a long time, 
making a casual remark 
now and then, as, " lie was 
very handsome, I think " ; 
or, "That uniform be- 
comes him very well. 
Why has he got it on, I 
wonder ?" 

The others went on talk- 
"ouT OF THE MYSTERIOUS EAST " ing, aud Mrs. Bugot made 

coffee. 
Presently Mrs. Bagot took a cup of coffee to Trilby, 
and found her still staring intently at the portrait, but 
with her eyes dilated, and quite a strange light in 
them. 




433 

" Trilby, Trilby, your coffee ! What is the matter, 
Trilby ?" 

Trilby was smiling, with fixed eyes, and made no 
answer. 

The others got up and gathered round her in some 
alarm. Marta seemed terror-stricken, and wished to 
snatch the photograph away, but was prevented from 
doing so; one didn't know what the consequences 
might be. 

Taffy rang the bell, and sent a servant for Dr. 
Thorne, who lived close by, in Fitzroy Square, 

Presently Trilby began to speak, quite soft]}^ in 
French: "Encore une fois? bon ! je veux bien! avec 
la voix blanche alors, n'est-ce pas? et puis f oncer au 
milieu. Et pas trop vite en comraen^ant ! Battez bien 
la mesure, Svengali — que je puisse bien voir — car il fait 
deja nuit ! c'est 9a ! Allons, Gecko^donne-moi le ton !" 

Then she smiled, and seemed to beat time softly b}'- 
moving her head a little from side to side, her eyes 
intent on Svengali's in the portrait, and suddenly she 
began to sing Chopin's Impromptu in A flat. 

She hardly seemed to breathe as the notes came 
pouring out, without words — mere vocalizing. It was 
as if breath were unnecessary for so little voice as she 
was using, though there was enough of it to fill the 
room — to fill the house — to drown her small audience 
in hol}^, heavenly sweetness. 

She was a consummate mistress of her art. How 
that could be seen ! And also how splendid had been 
her training ! It all seemed as easy to her as opening 
and shutting her eyes, and yet how utterly impossible 
to an v body els© ! 

28 



434 

Between wonder, enchantment, and alarm they were 
frozen to statues — all except Marta, who ran out of 
the room, crying : " Gott im Himmel ! wieder zuriick ! 
wieder zuriick !" 

She sang it just as she had sung it at the Salle des 
Bashibazoucks, only it sounded still more ineffably 
seductive, as she was using less voice — using the es- 
sence of her voice, in fact — the pure spirit, the A^ery 
cream of it. 

There can be little doubt that these four watchers 
by that enchanted couch were listening to not only 
the most divinely beautiful, but also the most astound- 
ing: feat of musical utterance ever heard out of a 
human throat. 

The usual effect was produced. Tears were streara- 
inff down the cheeks of Mrs. Bagot and Little Billee. 
Tears were in the Laird's eyes, a tear on one of Taf- 
fy's whiskers — tears of sheer delight. 

When she came back to the quick movement again, 
after the adagio, her voice grew louder and shriller, 
and sweet with a sweetness not of this earth; and 
went on increasing in volume as she quickened the 
time, nearing the end; and then came the dying away 
into all but nothing — a mere melodic breath; and 
then the little soft chromatic ascending rocket, up to 
E in alt, the last parting caress (which Svengali had 
introduced as a finale, for it does not exist in the 
piano score). 

When it was over, she said : " Qa 5'^ est-il, cette fois, 
Svengali ? Ah ! tant mieiix, a, la fin ! c'est pas mal- 
heureux ! Et maintenant, mon ixim,Je suis fatiguee — 
hon soir /" , 



435 

Her liead fell back on the pillow, and she lay fast 
asleep. 

Mrs. Bagot took the portrait away gently. Little 
Billee knelt down and held Trilby's hand in his and 
felt for her pulse, and could not find it. 

He said, " Trilby ! Trilby !" and put his ear to her 
mouth to hear her breathe. Her breath was inaudi- 
ble. 

But soon she folded her hands across her breast, 
and uttered a little short sigh, and in a weak voice 
said : " Sven.gaU. . . . Svengali. . . . Svengali ! . . ," 

They remained in silence round her for several min- 
utes, terror-stricken. 

The doctor came ; he put his hand to her heart, his 
ear to her lips. He turned up one of her eyelids and 
looked at her eye. And then, his voice quivering with 
strong emotion, he stood up and said, " Madame Sven- 
gali's trials and sufferings are all over !" 

" Oh, good God ! is she dead f cried Mrs. Bagot. 

" Yes, Mrs. Bagot. She has been dead several min- 
utes — perhaps a quarter of an hour." 



VINGT ANS APRfiS 

PoRTHos - Athos, alias Taffy Wynne, is sitting to 
breakfast (opposite his wife) at a little table in the 
court-yard of that huge caravanserai on the Boulevard 
des CapucineSj Paris, where he had sat more than 
twenty years ago with the Laird and Little Billee; 
where, in fact, he had pulled Svengali's nose. 

Little is changed in the aspect of the place: the 



436 

same cosmopolite company, with more of the Ameri- 
can' element, perhaps; the same arrivals and depart- 
ures in railway omnibuses, cabs, hired carriages ; and, 
airing his calves on the marble steps, stood just such 
another colossal and beautiful old man in black cloth 
coat and knee-breeches and silk stockings as of yore, 
with probably the very same pinchbeck chain. Where 
do they breed these magnificent old Frenchmen ? In 
Germany, perhaps, " where all the good big waiters 
come from !" 

And also the same fine weather. It is always fine 
weather in the court-yard of the Grand Hotel. As 
the Laird Avould say, they manage these things better 
there ! 

Taffy wears a short beard, which is turning gray. 
His kind blue eye is no longer choleric, but mild and 
friendly — as frank as ever ; and full of humorous pa- 
tience. He has grown stouter ; he is very big indeed, 
in all three dimensions, but the symmetry and the 
gainliness of the athlete belong to him still in move- 
ment and repose ; and his clothes fit him beautifully, 
though they are not new, and show careful beating 
and brushing and ironing, and even a faint suspicion 
of all but imperceptible fine-drawing here and there. 

What a magnificent old man lie will make some day, 
should the Grand Hotel ever run short of them! He 
looks as if he could be trusted down to the ground — 
in all things, little or big ; as if his word were as good 
as his bond, and even better ; his wink as good as his 
word, his nod as good as his wink ; and, in truth, as he 
looks, so he is. 

The most cynical disbeliever in " the grand old name 



438 

of gentleman," and its virtues as a noun of definition, 
would almost be justified in quite dogmatically assert- 
ing at sight, and without even being introduced, that, 
at all events, Taffy is a " gentleman," inside and out, 
up and down — from the crown of his head (which is get- 
ting rather bald) to the sole of his foot (by no means 
a small one, or a lightly shod — ex ])ede lierculcm) ! 

Indeed, this is always the first thing people say of 
Taffy — and the last. It means, perhaps, that he may 
be a trifle dull. Well, one can't be everything! 

Porthos was a trifle didl — and so was Athos, I think ; 
and likewise his son, the faithful Viscount of Brage- 
lonne — hon chien chasse de race ! And so was Wilfred 
of Ivanhoe, the disinherited; and Edgar, the Lord of 
Kavenswood ! and so, for that matter, was Colonel 
Newcome, of immortal memory ! 

Yet who does not love them — who would not wish 
to be like them, for better, for worse ! 

Taffy's wife is unlike Taffy in many ways; but 
(fortunately for both) very like him in some. She is a 
little woman, very well shaped, very dark, with black, 
wavy hair, and very small hands and feet ; a very 
graceful, handsome, and vivacious person ; by no 
means dull ; full, indeed, of quick perceptions and in- 
tuitions ; deeply interested in all that is going on about 
and around her, and with always lots to say about it, 
but not too much. 

She distinctly belongs to the rare, and ever-blessed, 
and most precious race of charmers. 

She had fallen in love with the stalwart Taffy more 
than a quarter of a century ago in the Place St. Ana- 
tole des Arts, where he and she and her mother had 




"tout vient a point, pour qui sait attendre!" 

tended the sick -couch of Little Billee — but she had 
never told her love. Tout vient d point, pour qui sait 
attendre ! 

That is a capital proverb, and sometimes even a true 
one. Blanche Bagot had found it to be both ! 



One terrible night, never to be forgotten, Taffy lay- 
fast asleep in bed, at his rooms in Jermyn Street, for 
he was very tired ; grief tires more than anything, and 
brings a deeper slumber. 



440 

That day he had followed Trilby to her last home in 
Kensal Green, with Little Billee, Mrs. Bagot, the Laird, 
Antony, the Greek, and Durien (who had come over 
from, Paris on purpose) as chief mourners; and very 
many other people, noble, famous, or otherwise, English 
and foreign ; a splendid and most representative gather- 
ing, as was duly chronicled in all the newspapers here 
and abroad ; a fitting ceremony to close the brief but 
splendid career of the greatest pleasure - giver of our 
time. 

He was awakened by a tremendous ringing at the 
street-door bell, as if the house were on fire ; and then 
there was a hurried scrambling up in the dark, a tum- 
bling over stairs and kicking against banisters, and 
Little Billee had burst into his room, calling out : " Oh ! 
Taffy, Taffy ! I'm g-going mad — I'm g-going m-mad ! 
I'm d-d-done for . . ." 

" All right, old fellow — just wait till I strike a light !" 

" Oh, Taffy ! I haven't slept for four nights — not a 
wink! She d-d-died with Sv — Sv — Sv . . . damn it, I 
can't get it out ! that ruffian's name on her lips ! ... it 
was just as if he were calling her from the t-t-tomb ! 
She recovered her senses the very minute she saw his 
photograph — she was so f-fond of him she f-forgot 
everybody else ! She's gone straight to him, after all 
— in some other life! . . . to slave for him, and sing for 
him, and help him to make better music than ever ! 
Oh, T— T— oh— oh ! Taffy— oh ! oh! oh! catch hold! 
c-c-catch ..." And Little Billee had all but fallen on 
the floor in a fit. 

And all the old miserable business of five years be- 
fore had begun over again ! 



441 



There has been too much sickness in this story, so I 
will tell as little as possible of poor Little Billee's long 
illness, his slow and only partial recovery, the paraly- 
sis of his powers as a painter, his quick decline, his 
early death, his manly, calm, and most beautiful sur- 
render — the wedding of the moth with the star, of 
the night with the 
morrow ! 

For all but blame- 
less as his short life 
had been, and so full 
of splendid promise 




"l, PKTE COEI.KSTES. 



443 

and performance, nothing ever became him better 
than the way he left it. It was as if he were starting 
on some distant holy quest, like some gallant knight 
of old — " A Bagot to the Rescue !" It shook the in- 
fallibility of a certain vicar down to its very founda- 
tions, and made him think more deeply about things 
than he had ever thought yet. It gave him pause! 
. . . and so wrung his heart that when, at the last, he 
stooped to kiss his poor young dead friend's pure 
white forehead, he dropped a bigger tear on it than 
Little Billee (once so given to the dropping of big 
tears) had ever dropped in his life. 

But it is all too sad to write about. 

It was by Little Billee's bedside, in Devonshire, that 
Taffy had grown to love Blanche Bagot, and not very 
many weeks after it was all over that Taffy had asked 
her to be his wife ; and in a year they were married, 
and a very happy marriage it turned out — the one 
thing that poor Mrs. Bagot still looks upon as a com- 
pensation for all the griefs and troubles of her life. 

During the first year or two Blanche had perhaps 
been the most ardently loving of this well - assorted 
pair. That beautiful look of love surprised (which 
makes all women's eyes look the same) came into hers 
whenever she looked at Taffy, and filled his heart with 
tender compunction, and a queer sense of his own un- 
worthiness. 

Then a boy was born to them, and that look fell on 
the boy, and the good Taffy caught it as it passed him 
by, and he felt a helpless, absurd jealousy, that was none 
the less painful for being so ridiculous ! i\nd then that 
look fell on another boy and yet another, so that it 



443 

was tlirougli these boys that she looked at their father. 
Theu his eyes caught the look, and kept it for their 
own use ; and he grew never to look at his wife with- 
out it ; and as no daughter came, she retained for life 
the monopoly of that most sweet and expressive regard. 

They are not very rich. He is a far better sports- 
man than he will ever be a painter ; and if he doesn't 
sell his pictures, it is not because they are too good 
for the public taste : indeed, he has no illusions on 
that score himself, even if his wife has I He is quite 
the least conceited art-duffer I ever met — and I have 
met many far worse duffers than Taffy. 

Would only that I might kill off his cousin Sir 
Oscar, and Sir Oscar's five sons (the Wynnes are good 
at sons), and his seventeen grandsons, and the four- 
teen cousins (and their numerous male progeny), that 
stand between Taffy and the baronetcy, and whatever 
property goes with it, so that he might be Sir Taffy, 
and dear Blanche Bagot (that was) might be called 
" my lady " ! This Shakespearian holocaust would 
scarcely cost me a pang! 

It is a great temptation, when j^ou have duly slain 
your first hero, to enrich hero number two beyond the 
dreams of avarice, and provide him with a title and a 
castle and park, as well as a handsome wife and a nice 
family ! But truth is inexorable — and, besides, they 
are just as happy as they are. 

They are well off enough, anyhow, to spend a week 
in Paris at last, and even to stop at the Grand Hotel ! 
now that tw^o of their sons are at Harrow (where their 
father was before them), and the third is safe at a 
preparatory school at Elstree, Herts. 



444 

It is their first outing since the honeymoon, and 
the Laird should have come with them. 

But the good Laird of Cockpen (who is now a 
famous Royal Academician) is preparing for a lioney- 
raoon of his own. He has gone to Scotland to be 
married himself — to wed a fair and clever country- 
woman of just a suitable age, for he has known her 
ever since she was a bright little lassie in short frocks, 
and he a promising A.R.A. (the pride of his native 
Dundee) — a marriage of reason, and well-seasoned af- 
fection, and mutual esteem — and therefore sure to 
turn out a happy one ! and in another fortnight or so 
the pair of them will very possibly be sitting to break- 
fast opposite each other at that very corner table in 
the court-yart^ of the Grand Hotel! and she will laugh 
at everything he says — and they will live happily ever 
after. 

So much for hero number three — D' Artagnan ! 
Here's to you, Sandy McAlister, canniest, genialest, 
and most humorous of Scots ! most delicate, and 
dainty, and fanciful of British painters ! " I trink 
your health, mit your family's — may you lif long — 
and brosper !" 

So Taffy and his wife have come for their second 
honeymoon, their Indian -summer honeymoon, alone; 
and are well content that it should be so. Two's 
always company for such a pair — the amusing one 
and the amusable ! — and they are making the most 
of it ! 

They have been all over the quartier latin, and re- 
visited the well - remembered spots ; and even been al- 



445 

lowed to enter the old studio, through the kindness of 
the concierge (who is no longer Madame Yinard). It 
is tenanted by two American painters, who are coldly 
civil on being thus disturbed in the middle of their 
work. 

The studio is very spick and span, and most re- 
spectable. Trilby's foot, and the poem, and the sheet 
of plate-glass have been improved away, and a book- 
shelf put in their place. The new concierge (who 
has only been there a year) knows nothing of Trilby, 
and of the Vinards, only that they are rich and pros- 
perous, and live somewhere in the south of France, 
and that Monsieur Vinard is mayor of his commune. 
Que le hcin Diou les henisse ! cctaient de Men hraves 
gens. 

Then Mr. and Mrs. Taffy have also been driven (in 
an open caleche with two horses) through the Bois de 
Boulogne to St. Cloud ; and to Versailles, where they 
lunched at the Hotel des Reservoirs — parlez-moi de 
ga ! and to St. Germain, and to Meudon (where they 
lunched at la loge du garde champetre — a new one) ; 
they have visited the Salon, the Louvre, the porcelain 
manufactory at Sevres, the Gobelins, the Hotel Cluny, 
the Invalides, with Napoleon's tomb, and seen half a 
dozen churches, including Notre Dame and the Sainte 
Chapelle ; and dined with the Dodors at their charm- 
ing villa near Asnieres, and with the Zouzous at the 
splendid Hotel de la Rochemartel, and with the Du- 
riens in the Pare Monceau (Dodor's food was best and 
Zouzou's worst ; and at Durien's the company and 
talk were so good that one forgot to notice the food — 
and that was a pity). And the young Dodors are all 



446 

« 

right — and so are the young Duriens. As for the 
young Zouzous, there aren't any — and that's a re- 
lief. 

And they've been to the Yarietes and seen Ma- 
dame Chaumont, and to the Fran9ais and seen Sarah 
Bernhardt and Coquelin and Delaunay, and to the 
Opera and heard Monsieur Lassalle. 

And to-day being their last day, they are going to 
laze and flane about the boulevards, aaid buy things, 
and lunch anywhere, " sur le pouce," and do the Bois 
once more and see tout Paris, and dine early at Du- 
rand's, or Bignon's (or else the Cafe des Ambassa- 
deurs), and finish up the well - spent day at the 
" Mouches d'Espagne " — the new theatre in the Boule- 
vard Poissonniore — to see Madame Cantharidi in 
" Petits Bonheurs de Contrebande," which they are 
told is immensely droll and quite proper — funny with- 
out being vulgar ! Dodor was their informant — he 
had taken Madame Dodor to see it three or four 
times. 

Madame Cantharidi, as everybody knows, is a very 
clever but extremely plain old woman with a cracked 
voice — of spotless reputation, and the irreproachable 
mother of a grown-up family whom she has brought 
up in perfection. They have never been allowed to 
see their mother (and grandmother) act — not even the 
sons. Their excellent father (who adores both them 
and her) has drawn the line at that ! 

In private life she is " quite the lady," but on the 
stage — well, go and see her, and you will understand 
how she comes to be the idol of the Parisian public. 
For she is the true and liberal dispenser to them of 



447 

that modern "esprit gaulois" which would make the 
good Kabelais turn uneasily in his grave and blush 
there like a Benedictine Sister. 

And trul}^ she deserves the reverential love and 
gratitude of her chers Parisiens ! She amused them 
all through the Empire ; during the annee terrible she 
was their only stay and comfort, and has been their 
chief delight ever since, and is now. 

"When they come back from La Revanche^ may 
Madame Cantharidi be still at her post, " Les mouches 




"PETITS BONHEURS DE CONTREBANDE " 



d'Espagne," to welcome the returning heroes, and 
exult and crow with them in her funny cracked old 
voice ; or, haply, even console them once more, as the 
case may be. 

"Victors or vanquished, they will laugh the 
same !" 

Mrs. Taffy is a poor French scholar. One must 



448 

know French very well indeed (and many other 
things besides) to seize the subtle points of Madame 
Cantharidi's play (and by-play) ! 

But Madame Cantharidi has so droll a face and 
voice, and such very droll, odd movements that Mrs. 
Taffy goes into fits of laughter as soon as the quaint 
little old lady comes on the stage. So heartily does 
she laugh that a good Parisian bourgeois turns round 
and remarks to his wife : " Via une jolie p'tite An- 
glaise qui n'est pas begueule, au moins! Et 1' gros 
boeuf avec les yeux bleus en boules de loto — c'est son 
mari, sans doute ! il n'a pas I'air trop content par ex- 
emple, celui-la !" 

The fact is that the good Taffy (who knoAvs French 
very well indeed) is quite scandalized, and very angry 
with Dodor for sending them there; and as soon as 
the first act is finished he means, without any fuss, to 
take his wife away. 

As he sits patiently, too indignant to laugh at what 
is really funny in the piece (much of it is vulgar ^oith- 
out being funny), he finds himself watching a little 
white-haired man in the orchestra, a fiddler, the shape 
of whose back seems somehow familiar, as he plays an 
ohhligato accompaniment to a very broadly comic song 
of Madame Cantharidi's. He plays beautifully — like 
a master — and the loud applause is as much for him as 
for the vocalist. 

Presently this fiddler turns his head so tl)at his pro- 
file can be seen, and Taffy recognizes him. 

After five minutes' thought, Taffy takes a leaf out 
of his pocket-book and writes (in perfectly grammat- 
ical French) : 



449 

"Deak Gecko, — You have not forgotten Taffy- 
Wynne, I hope; and Litrebili, and Litrebili's sister, 
who is now Mrs. Taffy "Wynne. We leave Paris to- 
morrow, and would like very much to see you once 
more. Will you, after the play, come and sup with 
us at the Cafe Anglais? If so, look up and make 
' yes ' with the head, and enchant 

" Your well-devoted Taffy Wynne." 

He gives this, folded, to an attendant — for " le pre- 
mier violon — celui qui a des cheveux blancs." 

Presently he sees Gecko receive the note and read 
it and ponder for a while. 

Then Gecko looks round the theatre, and Taffy 
waves his handkerchief and catches the eye of the 
premier violon, who "makes 'yes' with the head." 

And then, the first act over, Mr. and Mrs. Wynne 
leave the theatre ; Mr. explaining why, and Mrs. very 
ready to go, as she was beginning to feel strangely 
uncomfortable without quite realizing as yet what 
was amiss with the lively Madame Cantharidi. 

Tliey went to the Cafe Anglais and bespoke a nice 
little room on the entresol overlooking the boulevard, 
and ordered a nice little supper; salmi of something 
very good, mayonnaise of lobster, and one or two 
other dishes better still — and chambertin of the best. 
Tuffy was particular about these things on a holiday, 
and regardless of expense. Porthos was very hospi- 
table, and liked good food and plenty of it ; and Athos 
dearly loved good wine ! 

And then they went and sat at a little round table 
outside the Cafe de la Paix on the boulevard, neai 

29 



450 

the Grand Opera, where it is always very gay, and 
studied Paris life, and nursed their appetites till sup- 
per-tirae. 

At half-past eleven Gecko made his appearance — 
very meek and humble. He looked old — ten years 
older than he really was — much bowed down, and as 
if he had roughed it all his life, and had found living 
a desperate long, hard grind. 

He kissed Mrs. Taffy's hand, and seemed half in- 
clined to kiss Taffy's too, and was almost tearful in 
his pleasure at meeting them again, and his gratitude 
at being asked to sup with them. He had soft, cling- 
ing, caressing manners, like a nice dog's, that made 
you his friend at once. He was obviously genuine 
and sincere, and quite pathetically simple, as he al- 
ways had been. 

At first he could scarcely eat for nervous excite- 
ment; but Taffy's fine example and Mrs. Taffy's ge- 
nial, easy-going cordiality (and a couple of glasses of 
chambertin) soon put him at his ease and woke up his 
dormant appetite ; which was a very large one, poor 
fellow! 

He was told all about Little Billee's death, and 
deeply moved to hear the cause which had brought 
it about, and then they talked of Trilby. 

He pulled her watch out of his waistcoat - pocket 
and reverently kissed it, exclaiming: " Ah ! c'etait un 
ange ! un ange du Paradis ! when I tell you I lived 
with them for five years! Oh! her kindness, Dio, dio 
Maria ! It was ' Gecko this!' and ' Gecko that !' and 
' Poor Gecko, your toothache, how it worries me !' and 
' Gecko, how tired and pale you look — you distress 




ENTER GECKO 



452 

me so, looking like that ! Shall I mix you a mai- 
trank V And ' Gecko, you love artichokes a la Bari- 
goule ; they remind you of Paris — I have heard you 
say so, "Well, I have found out where to get arti- 
chokes, and I know how to do them a la Barigoule, 
and you shall have them for dinner to-day and to- 
morrow and all the week after !' and we did ! 

" Ach ! dear kind one — what did I really care for 
artichokes a la Barigoule ? . . . 

"And it was always like that — always — and to 
Svengali and old Marta just the same ! and she was 
never well — never ! toujours souffrante ! 

" And it was she who supported us all — in luxury 
and splendor sometimes !" 

" And what an artist !" said Taffy. 

"Ah, yes! but all that was Svengali, you know, 
Svengali was the greatest artist I ever met ! Mon- 
sieur, Svengali was a demon, a magician ! I used to 
think liira a god ! He found me playing in the streets 
for copper coins, and took me by tiie hand, and was 
m}'^ only friend, and taught me all I ever knew — and 
yet he could not play my instrument ! 

" And now he is dead, I have forgotten how to play it 
myself ! Tliat English jail ! it demoralized me, ruined 
me forever! acli ! quel enfer, nom de Dieu (pardon, ma- 
dame)! I am just good enough to play the ohhligato at 
the Mouches d'Espagne, when the old Cantharidi sings, 

"'Via moil mari qui r'garcle 

Prcuds garde — iie m'cbatouille plus !' 

" It does not want much of an ohhligato, hein, a 
song so noble and so beautiful as that ! 



453 

" And that song, monsieur, all Paris is singing it 
now. And that is the Paris that went mad when 
Trilby sang the 'Nussbaum' of Schumann at the Salle 
des Bashibazoucks. You heard her? Well!" 

And here poor Gecko tried to laugh a little sardonic 
laugh in falsetto, like Svengali's, full of scorn and bit- 
terness — and very nearly succeeded. 

"But Avhat made you strike him with — with that 
knife, you know ?" 

"Ah, monsieur, it had been coming on for a long 
time. lie used to Avork Trilby too hard ; it was kill- 
ing her — it killed her at last ! And then at the end 
he was unkind to her and scolded her and called her 
names — horrid names — and then one day in London 
he struck her. He struck her on the fingers with his 
baton, and she fell down on her knees and cried . . . 

" Monsieur, I would have defended Trilby against 
a locomotive going grande vitesse! against my own 
father — against the Emperor of Austria — against the 
Pope ! and 1 am a good Catholic, monsieur ! I would 
have gone to the scaffold for her, and to the devil 
after !" 

And he piously crossed himself. 

"But, Svengali — wasn't he very fond of her?" 

" Oh yes, monsieur ! quant a ga, passionately ! But 
she did not love him as he wished to be loved. She 
loved Litrebili, monsieur! Litrebili, the brother of 
madame. And I suppose that Svengali grew angry 
and jealous at last. He changed as soon as he came 
to Paris. Perhaps Paris reminded him of Litrebili — 
and reminded Trilby, too !" 

"But how on earth did Svengali ever manage to 



454 

teach her how to sing like that ? She had no ear for 
music whatever when we knew her !" 

Gecko was silent for a while, and Taffy filled his 
glass, and gave him a cigar, and lit one himself. 

" Monsieur, no — that is true. She had not much 
ear. But she had such a voice as had never been 
heard. Svengali knew that. He had found it out 
long ago. Litolff had found it out, too. One day 
Svengali heard Litoltf tell Meyerbeer that the most 
beautiful female voice in Europe belonged to an Eng- 
lish grjsette who sat as a model to sculptors in the 
quartier latin, but that unfortunately she was quite 
tone-deaf, and couldn't sing one single note in tune. 
Imagine how Svengali chuckled ! I see it from here! 

" Well, we both taught her together — for three 
years — morning, noon, and night — six — eight hours a 
day. It used to split me the heart to see her worked 
like that ! We took her voice note by note^there was 
no end to her notes, each more beautiful than the 
other — velvet and gold, beautiful flowers, pearls, dia- 
monds, rubies — drops of dew and honey ; peaches, 
oranges, and lemons ! en veux-tu en voila ! — all the 
perfumes and spices of the Garden of Eden ! Svengali 
with his little flexible flageolet, I with my violin — that 
is how we taught her to make the sounds — and then 
how to use them. She was a phenomene, monsieur ! 
She could keep on one note and make it go through 
all the colors in the rainbow — according to the way 
Svengali looked at her. It would make you laugh — it 
would make you cry — but, cry or laugh, it was the 
sweetest, the most touching, the most beautiful note 
you ever heard — except all her others ! and each had 




" ' WE TOOK HER VOICE NOTE BY NOTE ' " 



as many overtones as the bells in the Carillon de Kotre 
Dame. She could run up and down the scales, chro- 
matic scales, quicker and better and smoother than 
Svengah on the piano, and more in tune than any 
piano! and her shake — ach ! twin stars, monsieur! 
She was the greatest contralto, the greatest soprano 
the world has ever known ! the like of her has never 
been ! the like of her will never be again ! and yet she 
only sang in public for two years. 

" Ach ! tfiose breaks and runs and sudden leaps from 
darkness into light and back again — from earth to 
heaven! , , . those slurs and swoops and slides a la 



456 

Paganini from one note to another, like a swallow fly- 
ing ! ... or a gull ! Do you remember them ? how 
they drove you mad? Let any other singer in the 
world try to imitate them — they would make you 
sick ! That was Svengali ... he was a magician ! 

" And how she looked, singing ! do you remember ? 
her hands behind her— her dear, sweet, slender foot 
on a little stool — her thick hair lying down all along 
her back! And that good smile like the Madonna's 
so soft and bright and kind ! Ach ! Bel ucel dl Dio ! 
it was to make, you weep for love, merely to see her 
{c'etait a vous faire pleurer cf amour, rien que de la 
voir) ! That was Trilby ! Nightingale and bird-of- 
paradise in one ! 

" Enfin she could do anything — utter any sound she 
liked, when once Svengali had shown her how — and 
he was the greatest master that ever lived ! and when 
once she knew a thing, she knew it. Et voildf^ 

" How strange," said Taffy, " that she should have 
suddenly gone out of her senses that night at Drury 
Lane, and so completely forgotten it all ! I suppose 
she saw Svengali die in the box opposite, and that 
drove her mad !" 

And then Taffy told the little fiddler about Trilby's 
death-song, like a swan's, and Svengali's photograph. 
But Gecko had heard it all from Marta, who was now 
dead. 

Gecko sat and smoked and pondered for a while, 
and looked from one to the other. Then he pulled 
himself together with an effort, so to spe^k, and said, 
"Monsieur, she never went mad — not for one mo- 
ment !" 



457 

" What ! Do you mean to say she deceived us all ?" 

" Non, monsieur ! She could never deceive anybody, 
and never would. She had forgotten — noild tout /" 

"But hang it all, my friend, one doesn't forget 
such a — " 

" Monsieur, listen ! She is dead. And Svengali is 
dead — and Marta also. And I have a good Httle mal- 
ady that will kill me soon, Gott sei dank — and without 
much pain. 

" I will tell you a secret. 

" There were two Trilhys. There was the Trilby you 
knew, who could not sing one single note in tune. She 
was an angel of paradise. She is now ! But slie had 
no more idea of singing than I have of winning a 
steeple-chase at the croix de Berny. She could no 
more sing than a fiddle can play itself ! She could 
never tell one tune from another — one note from the 
next. Do you remember how she tried to sing 'Ben 
Bolt' that day when she first came to the studio in 
the Place St. Anatole des Arts? It was droll, heinf 
€b se toucher les oreilles ! Well, that was Trilby, your 
Trilby ! that was my Trilby too — and I loved her as 
one loves an only love, an only sister, an only child — 
a gentle martyr on earth, a blessed saint in heaven ! 
And that Trilby was enough for me ! 

" And that was the Trilby that loved your brother, 
madame — oh! but with all the love that was in her! 
He did not know what he had lost, your brother! 
Her love, it was immense, like her voice, and just as 
full of celestial sweetness and sympathy! She told 
me everything ! ce pauvre Litrehili, ce quHl a perdu! 

" But all at once — pr-r-r-out ! presto ! augenblick ! 



458 

. . . with one wave of his hand over her — with one 
look of his eye — with a word — Svengali could turn 
her into the other Trilby, his Trilby, and make her 
do whatever he liked . . . you might have run a red- 
hot needle into her and she would not have felt it. . . . 

" He had but to say ' Dors !' and she suddenly be- 
came an unconscious Trilby of marble, who could pro- 
duce wonderful sounds — just the sounds he wanted, 
and nothing else — and think his thoughts and wish 
his wishes — and love him at his biddino: with a strange 
unreal factitious love . . . just his own love for himself 
turned inside out — a Venvers — and reflected back on 
him, as from a mirror . . . un echo, un slmulacre, quoi! 
pas autre chose / . . . It was not worth having ! I 
was not even jealous ! 

"Well, that was the Trilby he taught how to sing 
— and — and I helped him, God of heaven forgive me ! 
That Trilby was just a singing machine — an organ to 
play upon — an instrument of music — a Stradivarius — a 
flexible flageolet of flesh and blood — a voice, and noth- 
ing more — just the unconscious voice that Svengali 
sang with — for it takes two to sing like la Svengali, 
monsieur — the one who has got the voice, and the one 
who knows what to do with it. . . , So that when you 
heard her sing the ' JSTussbaum,' the ' Impromptu,' you 
heard Svengali singing with her voice, just as you 
hear Joachim play a chaconne of Bach with his fiddle ! 
. . . Herr Joachim's fiddle . . . what does it know 
of Sebastian Bach ? and as for chaconnes . . . il s'en 
moque pas mal, cefameux violon! . . . 

" And our Trilby . . . what did she know of Schu- 
mann, Chopin ? — nothing at all ! She mocked herself 



459 



not badly of Nussbauras and impromptus . . . they 
would make her yawn to demantibulate her jaws! 
. . . When Svengali's Trilby was being taught to 
sing . . . when Svengali's Trilby was singing — or 




THE nightingale's FIRST SONG 



seemed to you as if she were singing — our Trilby had 
ceased to exist . . . our Trilby was fast asleep . . . 
in fact, our Trilby was dead. . . . 

"Ah, monsieur . . . that Trilby of Svengali's! I 



460 

have heard her sing to kings and queens in royal pal- 
aces ! ... as no woman has ever sung before or since. 
... I have seen emperors and grand-dukes kiss her 
hand, monsieur — and their wives and daughters kiss 
her lips, and weep. . . . 

" I have seen the horses taken out of her sledge and 
the pick of the nobility drag her home to the hotel 
. . . with torchlights and choruses and shoutings of 
glory and long life to her! . . . and serenades all 
nio-ht, under her window ! . . . she never knew ! she 
heard nothing — felt nothing — saw nothing! and she 
bowed to them, right and left, like a queen ! 

" I have played the fiddle for her while she sang in 
the streets, at fairs and festas and Kerraessen . . . and 
seen the people go mad to hear her . . . and once, 
at Prague, Svengali fell down in a fit from sheer excite- 
ment! and then, suddenly, our Trilby woke up and 
wondered what it was all about . . . and we took him 
home and put him to bed and left him with Marta — 
and Trilby and I went together arm in arm all over 
the town to fetch a doctor and buy things for supper 
— and that was the happiest hour in all my life ! 

"Ach! w^hat an existence! what travels! what tri- 
umphs! what adventures! Things to fill a book — a 
dozen books — Those five happy years— with those 
two Trilbys! what recollections! ... I think of 
nothing else, night or day . . . even as I play the 
fiddle for old Cantharidi. Ach ! ... To think how 
often I have played the fiddle for la Svengali ... to 
have done that is to have lived . . . and then to 
come home to Trilby . . . our Trilby . . . the real 
Trilby ! . . . Got sei dank ! Ich habe gelieht und ge- 



461 

lehet ! geliebt und gelebet ! geliebt und gelebet ! Cristo 
di Dio . . . Sweet sister in heaven ... 6 Dieu de 
Misere, ayez pitie de nous. . . ." 



His eyes were red, and his voice was high and shrill 
and tremulous and full of tears ; these remembrances 
were too much for him ; and perhaps also the cham- 
bertin ! He put his elbows on the table and hid his 
face in his hands and wept, muttering to himself in 
his own language 
(whatever that might 
have been — Polish, 
probably) as if he 
were praying. 

Taffy and his wife 




" ' ICH HA BE GELIEBT UND QELEBET P " 



463 

got up and leaned on the window-bar and looked out 
on the deserted boulevards, where an army of scaven- 
gers, noiseless and taciturn, was cleansing tlie asphalt 
roadway. The night above was dark, but " star-dials 
hinted of morn," and a fresh breeze had sprung up, 
making the leaves dance and rustle on the sycamore- 
trees along the Boulevard — a nice little breeze; just 
the sort of little breeze to do Paris good. A four- 
wheel cab came by at a foot pace, the driver humming 
a tune ; Taffy hailed him ; he said, " V'hi, m'sieur !" 
and drew up. 

Taffy rang the bell, and asked for the bill, and paid 
it. Gecko had apparentl}^ fallen asleep. Taffy gen- 
tly woke him up, and told him how late it was. The 
poor little man seemed dazed and rather tipsy, and 
looked older than ever; sixty, seventy— any age you 
like. Taffy helped him on with his great-coat, and, 
taking him by the arm, led him down-stairs, giving 
him his card, and telling him how glad he was to 
have seen him, and that he would write to him from 
England — a promise which was kept, one may be sure. 

Gecko uncovered his fuzzy white head, and took 
Mrs. Taffy's hand and kissed it, and thanked her 
warmly for her " si bon et sympathique accueil." 

Then Taffy all but lifted him into the cab, the jolly 
cabman saying r 

"Ah I bon — connais bien, celui la; vous savez — 
c'est lui qui joue du violon aux Mouclies d'Espagne ! 
II a soupe, r bourgeois ; n'est-ce pas, m'sieur ? ' petits 
bonheurs de contrebande,' hein? . . . ayez pas peur ! on 
vous aura soin de lui! il joue joliment bien, m'sieur; 
n'est-ce pas ?" 



463 

Taffy shook Gecko's hand, and asked, 

" Ou restez-vous, Gecko ?" 

" Quarante - huit, Rue des Pousse - cailloux, au cin- 
quieme." 

"How strange!" said Taffy to his wife — "how 
touching ! why, that's where Trilby used to live — the 
very number! the very floor !" 

" Oui, oui," said Gecko, waking up ; " c'est I'ancienne 
mansarde a Trilby — j'y suis depuis douze ans—fi/ suis, 
ff/ Teste. ..." 

And he laughed feebly at his mild little joke. 

Taffy told tlie address to the cabman, and gave him 
five francs. 

"Merci, m'sieur! C'est de I'aut' cute de I'eau — 
pres de la Soi'bonne, s'pas ''. On vous aura soin du 
bourgeois ; soyez tranquille — ayez pas peur ! quarante- 
huit ; on y va ! Bonsoir, monsieur et dame !" And 
he clacked his whip and rattled away, singing : 

" V'lil moil mari qui r'garde — 
Prends garde ! 
Ne m'chatouiir plus !" 

Mr. and Mrs. Wynne walked back to the hotel, which 
was not far. She hung on to his big arm and crept 
close to him, and shivered a little. It was quite chilly. 
Their footsteps were very audible in the stillness ; "pit- 
pat, flopety-clop." otherwise they Avere both silent. 
They were tired, yawny, sleepy, and very sad ; and 
each was thinking (and knew the other was thinking) 
that a week in Paris was just enough — and how nice it 
would be, in just a few hours more, to hear the rooks 
cawing round their own quiet little English country 



464 

home — where three jolly boys would soon be coming 
for the holidays. 

And there we Avill leave them to their useful, hum- 
drum, happy domestic existence — than which there is 
no better that I know of, at their time of life — and no 
better time of life than theirs ! 

" Oil petit on etre mieux qu'au sein de sa famille?" 

That blessed harbor of refuge well within our reach, 
and having really cut our wisdom teeth at last, and 
learned the ropes, and left off hankering after the 
moon — we can do with so little down here. . . . 

A little work, a lilt.le play- 
To keep us going — and so, good-day 1 

A little warmth, a little light 

Of love's bestowing — and so, good-night! 

A little fun, to match the sorrow 

Of each day's growing — and so, good-morrow i 

A little trust that when we die 

We reap our sowing ! And so — good-bye 1 




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